


True North

by navigator, quitter



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Choking, F/M, M/M, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:58:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navigator/pseuds/navigator, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quitter/pseuds/quitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altered-canon non-au set between November 2012 and January 7th, 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True North

**Author's Note:**

> hey! we did it! thanks to everyone who helped read and encourage us along the way -- there are quite a few of you, and that includes excited anons who checked weekly to make sure we hadn't dropped out <3
> 
> an overall disclaimer: though the fic does align with canon events that took place between november 2012 to january 2013, this is just fiction, and we're not claiming any of it to be true. it's not speculation, it's just us filling in the blanks to write a story we found interesting :) also re: other warnings -- there's a bit of consensual choking in one scene, and some ambiguous infidelity, though not between harry and louis, and it's not _really_ infidelity, but we wanted to warn just in case.
> 
> and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, a huuuuge huge thanks to [rave](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rave)/[sashayed](http://sashayed.tumblr.com) for making beautiful art and curating a mix that couldn't be MORE on-point. we're so happy and honored by her crazy talent and flawless taste and couldn't have asked for anyone better to team up with us. credit to the cover below goes to her -- click it to see the mix she made!
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://sashayed.tumblr.com/post/76404399146/true-north-a-mix-for-navigator-quitter-in-the)  
> 

Louis

There’s a chill in the air that nips at all of Louis’ exposed skin, leaving him pink nosed and cheeked and with icy fingertips as he stands at Harry’s doorstep. It’s Ben’s doorstep, rather, but it’s the best place to find Harry these days. He’s been hiding out in the attic, somehow not wearing out his welcome even though it’s been months now.

He’s not sure how the night’s events led him here, just that November hasn’t panned out at all the way he’d been expecting. They’re a week away from Madison Square Garden and under any other lens but his own, he should be on top of the world. His family has been talking about the trip to New York for weeks. His mum and the girls can’t stop rattling on over how excited they are to see him and the lads take the stage at the most famous venue in the world, and to experience the city alongside him and Eleanor.

How the fuck can he break it to them? It’s been so long since he’s gone through a break-up that he can’t remember the proper protocol. It’s different this time, anyway. They’re so much more attached. He thought he was, too.

A long moment passes after he lets the back of his knuckles rap against the door before he hears any signs of life on the other side. It’s loud, fumbling, and there’s a crashing sound that comes as a precursor to, ‘shit, sorry Colin.’ It’s distinctly Harry -- he knows that before the door ever pulls open. He just has a sense for him, the way his long limbs bumble around and knock into anything, everything.

“Louis? What’re you doing here?” Harry’s brows are furrowed, looking every bit confused by his presence there after already being bewildered from tripping over Ben’s dog. He’s only wearing his jeans and socks, hair rumpled like he’s just had a nap. Louis can see his skin react to the cold air, goosebumps across his chest in a matter of seconds.

It’s a valid question. Louis’ been round a grand total of once and it was for an impromptu meeting, not explicitly to visit him, even though he hadn’t minded the fact that Harry had been sleepy-eyed and sipping orange juice on one of the barstools while they spoke about filming locations.

Louis’ tongue feels thick when he goes to answer and the words turn in his head, but they don’t come.

“Can I come in?” he asks instead, trying to keep his voice light even though he knows he’s already walking a fine line, dancing precariously on the edge of giving himself away.

“Course,” Harry murmurs, still eyeing him with suspicion as he takes a step back, pulling the door along with him to let Louis inside.

There’s a fire going in the living room, making the space toasty and inviting, like walking straight into an embrace. It smells like clove cigarettes and old books and a little like Harry, too, when he walks close enough to toe at Louis’ ankle.

“What’s up?”

“Is Ben home?” Louis asks, reaching a hand behind himself to scratch nervously at the back of his neck, looking from Harry’s face to the row of bookcases that line the wall and then back again.

“No, he and Meredith are away for the weekend.”

“Right. I don’t know why I’m here,” Louis admits. He’s not nervous, Harry never makes him nervous, but there’s a feeling of apprehension he wants to shuck. “Just thought that, maybe...” He ends the sentence there, twisting his lips in annoyance when Harry doesn’t immediately pick up on what he’s trying hard not to actually ask for.

Harry’s fixated in one place, tall and statuesque and beautiful as ever, even with lines of confusion across his forehead. He’s not usually so slow on the uptake when they do this, but Louis understands; it’s been a long time. He has no reason to see it coming. Louis can’t remember the last time he’s seen him so unassuming.

Louis tucks his thumb between his teeth, biting again at his already well-bitten nail and rolling his eyes before he starts to close off the distance between them. Something flashes in Harry’s eyes and he _gets it_ , maybe a second total before Louis has their chests together and his arms wound around Harry’s neck.

“I don’t want you to ask me any questions,” he warns, combing his fingers through the back of Harry’s hair and tugging once, just watching his eyes closely as Harry takes hold of him around the middle and brings him even closer, baffling Louis because he never thinks twice before he lets him in. “Alright?”

“D’you have to ask?” Harry mumbles. One of his hands moves off of Louis’ back to cup his face, tilting it back just right so that he can look at him. There’s still this frustrating quality to his eyes that Louis doesn’t understand because he has to know, Louis has to be so obvious right now, but Harry still hasn’t kissed him and that -- that’s a problem.

Louis tilts up his chin and doesn’t wait for Harry any longer before he just kisses him hard, wishing away all the confusion and sadness he feels and putting everything he’s felt over the last week into this single kiss. It doesn’t take long for Harry to respond in kind, and if he’s surprised, it doesn’t stop him from kissing Louis back like he knows he wants it -- languid and generous and a little messy, but that’s Louis’ fault.

He pushes him back when he can let himself breathe again, walking Harry forward until his back hits a wall, and it takes that noise and that shock of pain to send them from passionate to frantic. Louis doesn’t want to think about anything, and he doesn’t, he just follows his instinct, which is to kiss every inch of Harry’s face that he can’t stop thinking about at night, the hard bone that juts from his chin and the hinge of his jaw. There’s a soft patch of skin below it that Louis sinks his teeth into until Harry winces, pinching his side and pulling him closer like he’s not sure if he wants him to keep it up or quit it.

He loves Harry like this, half asleep and shirtless and so fucking hot in his tight jeans. Louis can’t fathom that he was just lying around like that, can’t deal with the thought of him being alone and untouched and not using those big palms to squeeze at someone’s ass, but who is he kidding -- Louis has always been unreasonable and selfish when it comes to Harry, and he’ll never confess to it but he doesn’t want it to be anyone else besides him.

Harry’s back is still up against a wall, and Louis has no idea where they are in Ben’s house, can’t remember the layout well enough to guide them somewhere that resembles a bedroom.

He works the fly of Harry’s jeans right there, finding his cock already hard inside them and moaning when he presses it with his heel of his palm. Harry gasps and Louis puffs out a breath against his lips, bites Harry’s bottom lip hard just because he can as he shoves his hand indelicately down the front of Harry’s pants and grabs hold of his dick until it fills his fist. He opens his eyes when he squeezes it and, fuck, he really missed it, he _wants_ it.

Normally he’d stop kissing Harry long enough to let him talk, seeing as no one else he’s been with is quite as delightfully filthy as Harry, and the right words from him can have Louis close to coming in minutes. It’s been too long for that, though, and Louis doesn’t want to remind himself that there are things he isn’t saying, so he just peppers his jaw with kisses as he strokes Harry, using his precome to wet his palm. He knows it’s good because Harry’s knees buckle and he holds tighter onto Louis’ ass, digging his fingers in hard and making a sound that can only be construed as a plea. They’ve not done this for so long and Harry’s already close to begging for something Louis planned to give him all along, and he likes that, he loves how _willing_ he is even though this is so completely unexpected.

“What are we--” Harry starts to ask, maybe because his conscience is getting to him or maybe because he’s just _curious_ , considering that they don’t do this anymore. No matter how commonplace it was before, no matter how much Louis’ _wanted_ of him since then, they don’t.

It’s been over a year and a half since he’s thought of taking things as far with Harry as he wants to tonight. They haven’t pushed things at all in ages, just something half-hearted six months ago when he and Eleanor were on a break. Maybe he owes him an explanation, but Louis just cuts him off with a curt shake of his head instead and strokes him quicker, desperately needing him to shut up before he loses his nerve.

To his credit, it works, and Harry’s words and the thought behind them seem to dissolve away completely. He chokes out a whine as his hips gravitate into the touch, forcing his cock past the grip Louis’ fingers create over and over again until Louis’ not sure how he’s even managing to keep upright.

“You _promised_ ,” Louis scolds anyway, murmuring against the shell of his ear, just to be certain that he’s not going to lose him. Harry has to hold to his word or there’s no way that he’ll be able to do this, not when there’s so much that he’d be forced to explain that can’t even conceive being ready for.

“Just take me to bed,” he adds, biting down where Harry’s jaw ends, stifling a gasp there as Harry’s hands ease inward on his ass, teasing him with the prospect of what’s to come. It’s been a heavy burden to carry, that much _want_ , and knowing that he’s going to get it makes the anticipation so strong that Louis’ practically shaking against Harry’s chest as they stand and keep close.

He can’t take it anymore when Harry starts kissing him again while simultaneously fucking through his fingers, and he drops his grip around him to reach for his hand instead. “Upstairs.”

Harry takes the initiative, not even bothering to properly tuck his cock back into his jeans before he leads him up, first one flight of stairs and then another, much smaller set. For all the vague reminders of Harry throughout the place, the attic itself is so distinctly Harry that Louis is amazed at how he’s already left his mark on a space that isn’t even really his. It all smells of him, _looks_ like him, and Louis can’t help but imagine him there -- stretched out on his back, texting his mates, watching the cars pass from the window, anything _._ It all fascinates him simply because it’s Harry, and no other person has ever left him so captivated while just _being_.

There’s a second of hesitation where Louis feels paralyzed at the foot of the bed, just staring down at the rumpled down comforter and pillows strewn about, trying to imagine himself amidst them. But then Harry’s there, kissing the back of his neck and slowly, meticulously undressing him until it all feels too tender, too much like something that Louis didn’t come here for. He pushes Harry’s hands off his waist, roughly, stepping out of his own boxers instead and turning to shuck Harry’s jeans down his narrow hips.

Harry’s hands slip into the back of his hair as he draws him into a kiss with enough force behind it that Louis starts moving, instinctively, walking them forward until Harry’s close enough to shove back against the mattress. He straddles his lap, just sitting on the tops of his thighs as he keeps Harry’s shoulders down with a heavy hold and mouths down the front of his body.

“Do you have--?” Louis mumbles, pressing a kiss against Harry’s sternum and then looking up at him through his fringe. Harry’s watching him raptly, paying too much attention, and Louis would love it at any other time, but it feels unnerving just then. He feels exposed having those eyes on him, filling in blanks that he wants to keep blank.

The task distracts him, though, and Louis’ grateful when Harry nods and reaches to tug open the nightstand drawer. He feels a hint of jealousy thinking about who else Harry might have had there and how many times and what they’d done, but it passes quickly. It’s not as if he has some false sense of entitlement over Harry when they’ve been moving in such vastly different directions for what feels like forever now, so far from where they’d once been.

Between kisses, he becomes keenly aware of the sound of a bottle cap and Harry’s arms moving around him, not missing a beat as he gets his fingers coated. Louis shuts his eyes to prepare for this, for Harry’s fingers that he hasn’t felt in forever, and even the first touch reminds him how much better he likes Harry’s hands than his own. He holds one stiff and presses it in slow and then out slower, using another, wider finger in its place, and then goes for two, making Louis shake and start to ride them, curling his hips forward. He won’t look at Harry’s face, but he’s good at pretending that his fingers are the reason why; he throws his head back and shuts his eyes, pretends he doesn’t feel Harry’s on him.

He absolutely refuses to make a sound, and it’s like Harry’s trying harder to elicit one out of him because of it, curling his fingers up just right and _stroking_ , stretching him out and filling him up and brushing over just the right spot until Louis has a mouth full of metal and his skin feels like it’s burning hot from everything he’s keeping in. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten -- couldn’t -- but all of his imagining left gaps for how good it really is, being taken, being with someone who knows his body well enough to riddle him with this much pleasure.

“Louis,” Harry murmurs, and despite his better judgment, Louis opens his eyes and looks down at him, at the soft part of his lips and the twist of confusion and affection in his eyes. Louis huffs out a breath in response, pushing his ass down hard on Harry’s fingers twice more, greedy to chase as much sensation as he can get before he reaches back for Harry’s wrist, pressing his thumb hard against his ‘I can’t change’ tattoo and stilling him as he pulls himself off.

“Fuck me,” Louis whispers back, almost conversationally, as he curls himself forward so that he can flatten his chest out against Harry’s and quiet him with another kiss. They go for it at the same time and when they meet it’s like, _everything_ , like he’s realizing all at once how hard it has been to miss this; to miss Harry, when he’s always been right there, hiding in plain sight.

Slipping his hands behind himself, Louis finds the base of Harry’s cock, using his thumb and forefinger to hold it in place as he rolls the condom Harry left alongside their bodies over it and doesn’t hesitate before he starts to sink down. It’s too fast, too dry, and he whines impatiently when Harry’s hand covers his and makes him stop so he can spread more lube between them. No matter how reckless, Louis can barely wait until he moves his hand again, getting it out of the way so that Louis can finish taking him in.

It’s a lot when he has all of Harry inside him and all he can do is rock down, pretending he’s ready for more even though he’s not -- not his body, at least. He just can’t...can’t pace himself no matter how much Harry whispers to him to take it slow or how tight his fingers dig into his thigh to distract him. He just takes, all at once, until he’s pushing his hips down steadily and fucking himself so well on Harry’s cock that he can’t think about all the things that he was carrying in his mind when he showed up here. Harry finally seems to get it because he’s not watching his face anymore, just mouthing along his collarbones for something to do with his lips to keep from saying anything.

Normally he appreciates how Harry always has to tell him how good he looks, how good he’s making him feel, and every fleeting thought that enters his head only to leave him just as quickly, but he’s even more thankful for his silence now. It was one of reasons why Louis came to him rather than anyone else. He knew Harry could give him what he needed.

Harry’s forehead is against his chest, his hands splayed out, covering part of his hips and ass all at once. It’s those details that make Louis’ head spin -- his long fingers, how effortlessly he can hold him, the way he smells. He can’t even think about the fact that none of it can be replicated, not without putting himself through unnecessary misery.

“M’gonna come,” Harry warns, breathing out long and heavy against Louis’ nipple, finally dragging his head back to look up at him again. It should be the way he’s snapping his hips up every time Louis pushes down rough and desperate on his prick or his hand finding Louis’, thumbing along the vein in the underside, but it’s _that_ \-- just the look in Harry’s eyes that makes him tighten, his muscles defying him, holding Harry in as his body jerks forward and he spills come in messy ropes down Harry’s fist.

Louis doesn’t know when Harry comes after that, doesn’t even really care if he has, because he’s so fucked up and he’s made no attempt to hide that he’s using him a little bit -- that that’s what this is about. He only realizes when Harry makes the sound he always does when he comes, deep and broken like it’s being wrenched out of him from somewhere far in that only Louis can really get to. Louis’ lashes flutter, wishing he could feel Harry filling him up, thinking too hard about the heat of nothing between them that he can only vaguely remember after all this time. It’s a dangerous thought, even more-so when Harry starts peppering his shoulders with kisses, pressing one right to the groove just above his collarbone -- his favorite spot.

It’s enough to make everything run cold all at once. Louis doesn’t want Harry to take it that far, to that place, and it’s like he can’t get away fast enough when he uses his fingers to hold the condom in place and pulls himself off. The emptiness is something that he’d forgotten, too, and it was right then when he would have let Harry circle all of himself around him at once and stuff him full with his fingers again until they were both ready for another go; but that was before. He just moves, without thinking, sliding his legs over the side of the bed and leaving Harry there, flushed everywhere and with hints of him all over.

“Where are you going?” Harry asks, frowning hard as he ties off the condom and tosses it in the bin next to the bed, starting to fold himself into a sitting position.

“I just...need to go,” Louis explains, slowly, searching around for his boxers on the floor and getting them up, then his jeans, with fumbling fingers. His body needs a rest and the bed full of soft white sheets and a downy duvet would be the perfect thing, the solution to his aches and pains all over, but Louis can’t even bring himself to look behind him.

Harry’s at his side as Louis pulls his t-shirt over his head and starts to gather his things. “I’ll walk you out,” is all he says. Louis hopes Harry can’t see him shaking as they descend the staircase and head back to the door.

Only then does he let himself look at Harry, and wearing nothing but his pants and blotches of red on his cheeks, he looks haphazardly enticing and confused. Louis’ heart is going to burst. “See you at the meeting,” he mumbles, zipping up his coat. “Yeah?”

“‘Kay...” Harry trails off, scratching his cheek and then unlocking the door. “Are you sure, like--”

“Nah, I’ve got--I can’t stay,” Louis shakes his head, and with a lump in his throat he turns around to see Harry half-naked in the doorway, cold and rightfully confused. Louis feels like shit. “See you tomorrow.”

Harry looks around beyond Louis’ face, his eyes flashing as though he might be thinking of something else to say -- but he doesn’t, he just bites his bottom lip and nods. “Yeah.” He waves and shuts the door.

With shaking hands, Louis puts the car in drive and turns onto the street. He’s never been this fucked.

 

Harry

No one pays attention during the scheduling meetings except Liam, who makes the rest of them look good. As long as one member of the band has some semblance of an idea what’s going on for the next week, the rest of them are content to let their team tell them what’s going to happen ten minutes before it happens. Harry learned a while ago that these scheduling meetings were almost always tentative, anyway; a very nice attempt at wrangling the five of them before they’d even gotten the chance to get away. They almost never work.

It’s the reason he has his phone on his thigh and is scrolling through his new Famous Quotes app he’s downloaded, trying to think of something interesting to tweet or forward to Cal, who’s been sending him Kermit the Frog quotes all morning.

The meeting is supposed to make their trip to the States run smoothly, but the difficult parts of it -- paparazzi, jet lag -- are going to happen no matter what, and the rest of it is mostly out of their hands.

There’s a lull in conversation that causes Harry to look up from his phone, checking to make sure he wasn’t asked a question. It’s just Paul shuffling through papers, though, so he’s off the hook, and as predicted, the only person not staring off into space or around the room is Liam.

There’s a pop and a hiss and Harry’s eyes follow the sound to Louis’ hands, which are circled around a can of Pepsi he’s just opened. Harry has to turn his head almost entirely to the left to look at him, so there’s no way Louis doesn’t know he’s staring, but he takes a sip of his drink and places it down onto the table and taps his foot and does pretty much everything he does when he’s uncomfortable. Harry looks away.

Yesterday was...unexpected. After he’d seen Louis off at the door without so much as a glance back in his direction let alone a kiss goodbye, Harry had returned to his makeshift bedroom to find a wreckage of sheets and a condom wrapper. Without hard evidence, he’s not even sure he’d believe it had happened, but the way his body buzzed with the aftershocks of his orgasm made it hard to deny.

It wasn’t until after Louis left that Harry even thought about Eleanor, at which point he became even more confused, because no matter what happened between him and Louis, Harry never thought that their chemistry or _whatever_ it was would threaten his relationship. He felt guilty and selfish for wanting more than what Louis had given him, sort of like he was pining after a one night stand, if all one night stands were people he had years of history with and longstanding crushes on.

His phone buzzes in his lap. He’s expecting something about Rainbow Connection from Cal, but it’s actually Taylor, which isn’t necessarily a _surprise,_ considering the last few weeks. They’re going to be in New York at the same time, and they made plans to meet up ages ago, though the way their texts are going it’s becoming more difficult to tell whether or not they fall under the friends or more-than category. She’s fit and she’s smart and her texts make Harry laugh, like this one, a picture of a tray of cookies she baked and a sad, tiny one in the corner that looks like it’s wearing a hat. He grins as he types back a message, asking her to save it for him to eat, but he’s only halfway through tapping out the words when chairs start scooting back from the table.

He looks up and tries not to look as though he hasn’t been completely ignoring everything they’ve talked about for the last half hour, but he’s already better off than Zayn, who looks like he’s just woken up from a nap as he lumbers to his feet. It’s been Harry’s instinct since they first met to search for Louis in any room, and he looks around for him only to see him leaving behind Paul.

Harry scoops his coat from the back of the chair and heads out, catching up with Louis easily. “Hey,” he says, bumping him with his shoulder.

“Well done staying awake during that,” Louis says, and Harry grins.

“Did you pack yet?”

Louis hasn’t looked at him yet, but he stops now and shakes his head, meets Harry’s eyes for a second and then looks away, behind him, anywhere else. It’s so obvious, he thinks; Louis is so transparent when something is on his mind, and to everyone else it may look believable, but Harry can see through it so effortlessly.

“No, I’ve gotta do that, actually. I’ll probably just stick with my standard method of dumping out entire drawers into my suitcase.”

“I don’t think that’s worked out for you so well in the past, Louis,” Harry says slowly, sarcastic. It doesn’t get quite the rise out of Louis that he wants, but he still looks affronted, which Harry thinks is better than nothing.

“If you want company, or something,” Harry continues, “‘m just gonna be doing the same thing, probably.”

They stop before the doorway, where members of their security are ready by the doors to ward off any over-excited fans. Harry can hear them screaming from behind the door, but they can’t even see him yet; he’ll never understand how they just _know_.

“Nah, mate, I’m just going to try and focus on my own, I think,” Louis says, his voice light. The confusion Harry feels is nagging at him now, pressing him to ask what yesterday was all about, but Louis speaks up first. “Don’t forget to bring an extra pair of headphones,” he adds, starting toward the door. “I’ll probably forget mine again, so.” There’s a forced sound that’s masquerading as a laugh, and then Louis is the first one out. Harry watches him as Preston places a Sharpie in his hand and asks him if he’s ready.

Harry feels stunted by what just happened, how he’d quite literally been brushed off when he tried to ease them into something that could lead to him _maybe_ getting some answers. He almost wants to run after Louis, demand he tell him why he chose yesterday, right before one of the biggest moments of their career, to turn everything on its head and confuse things between them. He can’t bring himself to do it, though, not when he knows precisely how stubborn Louis is and how pushing too hard only closes him off more.

Preston prompts him, again, reaching for the door handle so that Harry will get a move on. His phone buzzes in his pocket first, though, and Harry asks him for just a minute, looking pleading enough that Preston relents. He gives him five more minutes and walks a few paces away to talk to Paul, probably strategizing the quickest way to get the others out.

It’s Taylor again, and Harry realizes he’s been accidentally ignoring her since his brief encounter with Louis because he never hit send on his last message. She’s so earnest and Harry loves it because he’s that way, too. Her _HEY, WHERE YOU AT_ makes him laugh, makes him appreciate the fact that she’s not afraid to look for his attention. It’s followed with a _Kidding. I know you’re busy, can’t wait to see you._ Harry stares hard at the screen, lets his mind wander to yesterday, to the way Louis kissed him and the scratches still on his shoulders, and how Louis doesn’t seem to be dwelling on it the way that he is. His thumb hovers for a second before he touches the text box, starting to type out a message back to Taylor, a Kermit quote that Cal had sent him earlier: _Movin’ right along, footloose and fancy-free. Getting there is fun; come share it with me._

\--

They went because Lux loves penguins.

Harry bought her a plush one for her birthday and she calls it Pen Pen and sleeps with it every night, which makes him inordinately happy. Also it turns out that the zoo is, according to Lou’s unprompted advice, a good place for a date.

Harry hasn’t called it a date, but it’s easier than explaining what it _actually_ is, because he really doesn’t know.

It’s a fairly quiet day, or at least it feels that way, despite the noise of Central Park. The weather is crisp and gorgeous, the sort of thing people reference when they talk about Autumn in New York City. Taylor looks right at home here, he thinks, smiling at seals and pointing out facts from the placards. Being around her is easy. Talking to her is easy. It’s the kind of day he’s grateful he can still have, and he knows it’s all down to the people he’s with. Lou is like family, at this point, and Taylor feels like someone he’s known for ages, the way she teases him, challenges him, makes him laugh and calls him out on his worst jokes.

He wouldn’t say he _ignores_ Louis’ texts, but he’s just -- he’s _busy_ , isn’t he, and for the first time in a long time there’s someone else to preoccupy his thoughts, and he refuses to let that be all Taylor is: a preoccupation.

It’s hard not to think of her as such when he steps out of a cab in front of the hotel at the same time as Louis that night, grinning to himself as he reads a text sent from Taylor despite having seen her only minutes ago. Bumping into Louis is a jerk back to a reality he’d been pretty intent on forgetting. Things have been weird on Harry’s end ever since he fucked Louis in Ben’s attic and was then forced to pretend that nothing happened the next day, and he’s adaptable, pleased to follow Louis’ lead, but Louis’ lead is apparently a dead end.

They’re all nervous for tomorrow -- everyone except Niall, maybe, who’s taking things in and accepting all of this insanity in a way Harry wishes he could without nerves getting in the way. But nerves don’t usually make Louis avoid him at all costs; kind of the _opposite_ , actually, but he doesn’t wait for Harry inside when Harry hangs back to take a few pictures with people waiting by the roped off area in front of the hotel.

Tomorrow’s huge, and he thought that being less than 24 hours away from it would make it seem less so, but Harry still feels the crushing weight of it when he tries to sleep that night. It’s the kind of worry that no one’s ever been able to talking him down from, except for one person, maybe, who always manages to be distracting and hyper and funny enough to make Harry forget the nerves in the pit of his stomach. He manages to doze off with the TV blaring before he actually texts Louis, though. It’s probably for the best.

\--

It feels like a dream. Everyone keeps saying so as they file around, checking out their stage and shaking the hands of dozens of people who all keep telling them they’ve made it, that it doesn’t get any bigger than this. It’s a weighty concept, Harry thinks, that this could be the biggest thing that they ever do in their careers and it would be enough to petrify him, maybe set him off into an existential crisis, if he weren’t riding on such a wave. All that keeps cycling through his head is _this is my life_ and it’s bizarre, just how far out of reach it all seemed before.

He remembers how Louis once mentioned that, when considering the band, it only ever felt like four boys and the fifth was always missing because it was just so strange to be able to include himself. He didn’t really understand it at the time because being part of the band has become such an extension of his identity, of _all_ of their identities, but he gets it now. Nearly every aspect of his life has changed, but he’s still just Harry when he wakes up, brushes his teeth, calls his mates back at home and lets them do all the talking. He hardly feels like someone who has the kind of stature for something like this.

The roar of the crowd is mad, louder than their last few gigs combined, and Liam keeps stealing looks from the side of the stage, giving them updates while the rest of them hang back. That buzzing nervous feeling has even hit Niall, finally, and he won’t stop talking as a result. It’s a nervous habit of his to become even more chatty than usual when he’s agitated, and Louis looks like he’s about to wallop him with the nearest blunt object if he doesn’t stop his chorus of _let’s do this, let’s do this, let’s do this._ Zayn is remarkably patient, smiling and nodding along and obviously appreciating the distraction, even encouraging it.

Freeing himself from between them, Louis sidles up next to Harry, propping himself up against one of the spare amplifiers. He’s looking, and he thinks Harry doesn’t realize, but of course he does -- he has a sixth sense for Louis’ eyes on him and the tension between them lately just makes him even more privy to any bit of attention that he gives him because it’s all sparse and strained when it’s there at all.  

“You look like you’re about to hurl,” Louis comments, casually, and sips from a water bottle.

Harry reaches back for it, slipping it out of his hand and downing the last quarter of it in one gulp. He squints hard, makes a gratuitous _ahhh_ sound that Louis scowls at him for, and hands it back empty.

“M’not. I’m excited... I just can’t wait to get out there, you know? I don’t like this part... the anticipation. Don’t wanna get too in my own head.”

Harry backs himself up enough until he’s standing against the amplifier with Louis and he can feel their shoulders brush, just grazing together when one of them fidgets or moves to wave hello to someone or _breathes_. It’s the closest they’ve been since that night at Ben’s and Harry has to use every last reserve of willpower that he has not to say something.

Apparently Louis isn’t trying quite so hard. “So, you and...”

Harry knows exactly where he’s going and it’s one of those moments where he desperately wishes real life was like one of those meta-reference episodes from old sitcoms, where he could pause everything around him and just say _nope, not now, not like this_ and position himself somewhere else before he unfreezes things and Louis finishes his question.

Every inch of his body tenses as it waits for it, but then the other boys are crowding around them, cutting things off so that they can form into a circle for their good luck chant: _Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go._ It’s showtime and he absolutely cannot allow himself to go out there bewildered by the fact that Louis’ aware that the wheels are turning between him and Taylor.

The time onstage is like lightning -- a flash and then it’s _over_ , and they’re all still riding on a high when they pile offstage after encore, sweaty and out of breath but burning with excitement. Everyone keeps telling them that they smashed it, that it couldn’t have been better, and it’s easy to believe when the energy around them is so good. It’s a victory for so many more people than just the five of them.

Between their family, mates, and the crew, it’s a party backstage, where it’s still loud and smells faintly like smoke from the pyro machines. They’re all supposed to be headed to their proper after-party, but no one seems ready to start piling into separate cars to actually make it there. There’s too many people to talk to, to catch up with, and there are so many conversations going on that Harry feels a bit aimless, not knowing who to gravitate toward first.

He winds up at his mum’s side, of course; that’s where the rest of the lads are, too. He’s extremely in-demand, even more so than usual, but he can’t look anywhere but right back at his mum’s watery eyes when she tries to tell him how proud she is and starts crying before she can finish the sentence.

It takes a hug to keep Harry from breaking down -- he hates to see his mum cry, even happy tears -- and it’s a nice moment, one he feels somewhere deep inside of him, one he’ll remember. He squeezes tight and she pats him gently on the back in a way she’s done for Harry’s whole life, and he’s slightly more clear-headed when he stands up straight again to wave hello to a weeping Karen Payne.

“Oh, hey,” he hears, and only then does he notice Taylor at his side, smiling serenely and holding out one arm for a hug.

“Hiii,” Harry drawls, laughing into the hug, genuinely happy to see her there. She’s unrufflable; proud of him, maybe, but she’s not about to fall apart, and her presence is oddly calming. She’s done this before, of course, and without the support of four people to back her up. Harry admires that in her; he looks up to her.

“Feeling good?” she asks, slipping her hands into the pockets of her coat. “That was _so_ much fun.”

“D’you think?” Harry smiles wide, curious to hear her take on the night. “I hope so.”

Before Taylor can answer, he hears a, “Harry?” and a tap on his shoulder, and it’s his mum, and this is something he hasn’t _quite_ prepared for, but fuck it, he thinks. The introduction goes about as well as can be expected.

What he’s not quite sure how to do is look Louis in the eye when Jay leads him over to their party of three. Behind them, people are pairing off to leave for the party, and Niall is peeling off his shirt on his way into a dressing room. There are a few ways Harry could make a run for it, but all of them would be too obvious or questionable, so he sucks it up.

Louis doesn’t miss a beat; he just hugs Anne and gives her a kiss on the cheek, and then holds his hand out to shake Taylor’s. It’s like watching a cat and a dog interact, or something, though there’s no tension -- none that Harry can sense, anyway. He and the lads haven’t talked about Taylor because, as Liam rather tactlessly informed him, everyone thought he was “joking about her.” He wants to jump in and offer some kind of mediation, but they seem to be doing fine themselves, and if Louis isn’t comfortable, he’s doing a great job acting otherwise.

Things backstage are moving so quickly that there’s not much opportunity for in depth conversation, anyway. Harry’s head feels like it might explode for several different reasons and he’s trying to carry on three conversations at once while Louis is in front of him talking to Taylor and Taylor is playing with Harry’s fingers between them and his mum has her arm around Louis and Harry is just -- it’s very confusing.

The summation of such a high-adrenaline night should be enough to make Harry forget about any residual weirdness between he and Louis, but the truth is that their friendship is and has always been just as big as the rest of this, and Harry can never simply turn that off even when it would be convenient to put it aside in favor of living in this moment.

But Louis excuses himself from his conversation with Taylor and Harry watches him retreat, biting his bottom lip until his head disappears down a corridor. Taylor tugs on his fingers and tucks her hair behind her ear when Harry looks over at her.

“It’s cool that I’m coming to this, right?” she asks. “I sort of feel like I’m keeping you from your family, and stuff, and I just don’t want to be in the way. I just talked Louis’ ear off,” she laughs, covering her eyes like she feels embarrassed. It’s very charming. “Totally didn’t mean to do that.”

Harry’s quick to shake his head no, and it’s not a lie. “No, you’re really not in the way,” he says, smiling until she smiles back. “There’s just -- a lot going on.” Taylor nods, and Harry continues, “I’ve got to change, and stuff, but like...I’ll catch up with you at the party, alright?”

Her reply is cut off by a shouted, “Harry!” from down the hall, and Niall is there with his arms out, the four other boys waiting for him to join the huddle. He glances at Taylor one more time and then runs to meet them, and the hug turns into more of a puddle of bodies in a matter of seconds, hands squeezing and Zayn kissing Niall on the face and Liam hopping up and down and Louis, when Harry looks up, staring right at him.

It feels like it’s the five of them against the world, sometimes, and in that moment Harry feels leveled, reminded of what he has and _who_ he has, no matter what. They’re just five lads in New York City in Madison Square Fucking Garden, and Harry doesn’t want to look at anyone but Louis.

He only stops because Niall jostles him. “Coming with us now?”

Harry blinks and looks over at him, but he can still feel Louis’ eyes on his face. “No, I’ll meet you there,” he says, thumbing over his shoulder to the dressing room. “I’ve got to get my stuff and change.”

The after party is going to be sick. Ed will be there and karaoke will be there and Harry’s been excited for it all day, which is why he intends to change quickly and collect his brown bag and go as soon as possible -- but after he’s in his own jeans and a t-shirt with his bag over his shoulder and his coat in his hand, the open door to Louis’ dressing room looks like an invitation. He walks in and kicks the door shut behind him with no real thought to a reason.

Louis’ back is turned to him, but he doesn’t look surprised to see Harry in the reflection of the mirror. He mumbles a quiet “Hey,” and Harry drops his bag to the floor.

“Admiring yourself?”

Louis keeps the best straight face, and even _that_ makes Harry start laughing. “Just my standard post-gig flexing routine.” He looks down and starts to unbutton his shirt from the neck down. Harry moves in front of him silently, shooing his hands away so he can finish the task himself. With the door shut, he feels like he can; he wants to, even if it’s pushing it. Louis pretends to be appalled.

“Pretty sure I’m still in shock,” Harry says, undoing the last button and then taking a step back to lean against the table by the wall. “I think I’ll make a new life here at MSG.”

“Reckon you’d fit right in,” Louis comments, rifling through his own bag to try and find something else to put on, but he’s not actually _getting anywhere_ and Harry doesn’t think that’s entirely unintentional. It’s not to show off -- he knows he doesn’t have to actually try to get Harry’s eyes on him -- they always end up there anyway, drinking in details that he’s long since memorized. He’s just buying them time. “Your entire wardrobe is framed in the halls.”

Harry laughs warmly, already having been teased once about it by both Niall and Louis when they were given a tour of the building and they had pointed out the fact that hoards of the band posters matched up with t-shirts that he owned.

“I just can’t believe tonight actually happened.” Suddenly his own feet seem like the most fascinating thing in the world and Harry’s thankful for the moment of silence as they both let it settle into them. There’s something in the air, hidden between the lines, and he doesn’t say it, but the _I’m glad I got to share this with you_ is as obvious as anything.

“Makes two of us,” Louis says, sounding pensive. He flits his eyes up to Harry, watching him until Harry is looking back. There seems to be a war waging in his mind. He pops the button on his jeans, tries to look nonchalant, but it’s not working, and Harry lets the feeling rush in this time. The questions are inevitable, and he has a few of his own, too, but he wants Louis to go first.

“Is... um... is Taylor having fun?” There are about a dozen questions trapped inside the simple one that Louis chooses, but it doesn’t make it any easier for Harry to answer. Yeah, Taylor is having fun. Taylor is _great_ , but Harry is a fucking mess. He’s on a high -- elated, but also so divided, but he can’t just say that to either of them. He can’t admit that he doesn’t know what he wants or what’s even on the table. He feels so selfish.

“Yeah, she’s good. It’s just...it’s a weird thing for me to be...” Harry stops. He should elaborate, but he suspects Louis might understand. Dating hasn’t been his strong suit in a long while or ever, really. Having a good time with people is easy, fucking them is easy -- he _loves_ both, loves everyone he meets -- but making ties, making _promises_ \-- it feels dangerous when everything in his life is so fast-paced and fleeting. Every time he tries to wrap his head around attaching himself to someone, it never makes sense to him. He can’t make it there.

“Dunno. Maybe I’m broken,” Harry adds, quirking the corners of his lips up in a smile. There’s not much levity to the situation at all, but it’s worth a try.

“You’re not,” Louis insists, shaking his head. There’s a heaviness in his voice that makes Harry feel helpless. How two words from Louis can knock him off his feet more so than volumes of assurance from anyone else is a mystery, but a reality. There’s no reason Louis should believe that he isn’t, in fact, slightly broken. He knows firsthand just how transient Harry’s relationships tend to be.

“Don’t say that about yourself,” Louis adds, even softer. His tolerance for self-hate is remarkably low. He’s everyone’s personal motivational speaker.

Harry doesn’t want to turn the knife, but as long as these things are being brought out into the open, he needs to ask. It’s been on his mind all night, and before that, too. It’s one of the many things that he’s been beating himself up about since _the incident_ \-- that’s what he’s calling it -- and Louis hasn’t said anything about it. No one has.

Harry coughs into his fist, then looks straight at him. “So where’s Eleanor, Louis? Thought for sure she’d be here tonight.”

The pause is only a little awkward. Louis looks down again and reaches for a shirt at the top of his bag. “Yeah, she’s just really busy,” he says. “I just spoke to her, actually.”

He’ll give him one more try. “She’s busy?”

“Yeah. Things are, like...I mean, yeah, that’s mostly it.” Louis clenches his jaw and Harry decides right then to drop it. It’s not the time he wants to make Louis feel uncomfortable by asking pointed questions about his relationship, even if he does feel like he’s owed some explanation for that night at Ben’s house which, as time passes, is beginning to feel more and more like a dream.

“Hey, look alive, Harold.” Louis snaps his fingers in front of him, and Harry smiles right on cue. “Now’s not the time for you to get all moody about how broken you are.”

There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, and they both laugh softly as they move away from that tension brought on by unofficially announced Question Time, which is a relief even if nothing has been resolved or explained with as much honesty as they deserve.

“Ready to be the life of the party?” Harry asks, watching as Louis buttons up his fresh jeans. He has to look away when Louis starts preening himself, adjusting the pockets and tugging down the crotch. He’s seen him get dressed and ready so many times and he still just wants to _watch_ , to see him do anything at all, no matter how mundane.

“Think so…” Louis trails off, sorting out his hair in the mirror. “Let me just--” And he spends a minute gathering his things, shoving clothes into his bag and stepping into his Vans on his way over to the door. He stops in front of it, looking decidedly Ready with his arms folded over his chest, and Harry huffs out a laugh.

He walks to Louis and crosses his arms, too, like they’re in some kind of face-off. It’s the last time he’ll get Louis alone tonight, and the list of things he wants from him is very long, and he can’t really do much about any of them.

“Well,” Louis starts, “Time to say goodbye to MSG.”

Harry glances at the door behind Louis. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re blocking the only exit.”

“Me?” Louis asks, appalled. He doesn’t move. “Funny, I had no idea--”

It only takes a step forward to close the distance between them, and Harry cuts him off when he reaches for Louis’ arms to wrap them around himself, instead. This wasn’t the plan when he saw Louis’ door ajar and maybe it’s not what Louis meant to happen, either, but he presses into his chest as Harry brings both hands to cup Louis’ face, and kisses him. It’s soft and quick and without much intent behind it because he knows he needs to hold himself back -- it’s just that he can’t resist stealing Louis away for a quick moment to just have _something_ to themselves.

“Tonight was good,” he mumbles, and it sounds like a congratulations, something more intimate than the cheers they’d given each other coming off stage.

Louis nods. “Amazing.”

Harry taps Louis’ hip, a touch of finality because they really _do_ need to get going. “C’mon, before my mum has my head.”

“Yeah,” Louis nods, “Definitely, I just--” And he’s on the balls of his feet again, a hand hooked round the back of Harry’s neck as he brings him in for an unexpected kiss that has more heat behind it than the last coupled with a wave of relief that Harry lets crash over him. Louis’ fingers stretch out the front of Harry’s t-shirt when he holds it with his free hand, kissing him _hard_ , before he takes a sudden, devastating step away from him. His cheeks are almost as red as his lips, and he looks at Harry with raised eyebrows, says, “Are you ready?”

“No,” Harry whispers. He feels electric, charged with something only Louis can conjure inside of him. “Not quite.” His fingertips hook in Louis’ beltloops and he tugs him back roughly and easily, Louis’ body light and effortless to bring back into his arms. “Definitely not ready,” he whispers, and kisses him again with that sinking feeling. It’s so much to be in love with this boy -- this _man_ that he’s accomplished so much alongside, and basking in this feeling with anyone besides him seems impossible.

Their kisses always devolve into this special form of communication where their bodies said things their words couldn’t, or at least that’s one explanation as to why Harry feels Louis holding onto him like he might fall over if he doesn’t, his fingers digging into his biceps and the muscles at the top of his spine, pressing hard and sending shivers down to Harry’s toes. Louis takes a step back so he can prop himself against the vanity table and he looks wild when their eyes meet again, sarcasm stripped from his face to reveal an honesty Harry rarely sees these days.

“When will you be ready, then?” Louis asks.

Harry can’t answer that. He presses his lips together into a thin line and shrugs, shakes his head once -- the _never_ doesn’t need to be said, he thinks, because Louis smiles, and when they kiss again, Harry can’t help but to moan quietly into it. His hands grip at Louis’ waist, just under his shirt where his skin is warm and soft and inviting, and Harry hoists him up onto the counter so he can slip between his legs. He’s not particularly gentle about it, doesn’t need to be with Louis because he knows he can take it, that he likes it.

There are things Harry wants to ask, namely _why_ , and what changed in the last three weeks that led to Louis riding him in Ben’s attic bedroom and then promptly leaving. But Harry knows better than to question this, because _this_ is what he wants -- it’s what he’ll always want, no matter how many times he tries to trick himself into thinking otherwise. It’s both frustrating and wonderful in its predictability.

Louis drops his head back and Harry tastes warm skin and sweat and faded cologne on his neck and can’t help the admission that follows. “I want--”

“What?” Louis asks, doing a terrible job of sounding disinterested as he tugs the strands at the back of Harry’s neck.

“You,” Harry mumbles into his skin. “Want to fuck you. All night, I’ve wanted--”

“Don’t tease me,” Louis huffs, tugs his hair harder and looks at Harry with a grin barely lifting the corner of his mouth. He slips his hand into the back pocket of Harry’s jeans and wriggles toward the edge of the counter so he can press his little body even closer against Harry’s, and Harry’s hips snap forward on instinct, finding the swell of Louis’ cock through the fly of his tight jeans. He kisses him and repeats the movement, and their simultaneous groan is almost comical, but it actually feels too good to break the kiss just to laugh.

Harry pushes his hands down the back of Louis’ jeans, nearly cutting off blood flow from his wrists just to knead at his ass. “How much of a hurry are you in?” he asks, dragging himself away just to mouth at Louis’ neck, tormenting the skin with wet kisses and grazes of his teeth.

“Should be in a big hurry.” Louis clenches his legs tighter around Harry’s and bucks up to knock their hips together again. “Reckon they can wait, right? I just don’t think I can--” He stops when Harry bites him harder on his neck, sucking a bruise just beside his Adam’s apple. Louis’ hand moves to the side of Harry’s neck and he presses his thumb at the same place Harry is kissing, pushing hard until Harry needs to swallow around the pressure. “Don’t think I can stop,” he finishes, sounding wrecked already.

The truth is that, no, they can’t really wait, and this is absolutely the most irresponsible thing Harry’s done in a long time for more reasons than he can even consider, but Louis is making him dizzy with the pressure on his neck and he won’t plead with him yet, but Harry wants to make him, wants to hear him beg and lay him out and take him apart only to piece him back together before they go out to face the myriad people who are waiting for them at the party.

“We’re not stopping,” Harry whispers, and pops open the button of his jeans, palms the small swell at the bottom of his belly beneath his shirt and when he pulls back to look at Louis, really _look_ , up close, he actually loses his breath. “You’re so completely beautiful,” he says, “I can’t believe it.”

Louis’ no good at accepting compliments, especially not ones that he can’t spread out amongst the rest of them to deflect a bit of the attention off himself, but he still glows.

“Harry,” he whispers, so serious, giving away just how much Harry has gotten under his skin. Harry could write pages on how it’s so much different than the way Louis casually rattles on to everyone else; he could cite every change in octave and try to explain how much sweeter it is, how he speaks to him like he’s trying to reason with madness.

With surprisingly steady hands, Harry winds his fists in the bottom of Louis’ t-shirt, dragging it right back over his head and getting his hands on his skin just as soon as it’s bare for him to touch. His fingers spread out to hold him by the widest part of his ribcage, dragging him in so close that he might slide down from the counter if he were to let go. His lips follow the same path, kissing everywhere, moving like brushstrokes on a canvas until Louis sets his hands behind himself and pushes his chest forward, reaching for something...for more than what Harry’s giving him.

“Tell me what you want, then. I wanna hear it,” Harry demands. His hands ease inward, meeting his thumbs in the center of Louis’ belly and just pressing there as he looks up, raptly watching Louis’ parted lips and his fluttering lashes.

It’s not a suggestion; he desperately wants to hear Louis say it, to watch his mouth wrap around the words so he’ll have the image to carry in his memory. There’s a part of him that’s always afraid, constantly wondering if it’s the last time, even though deep down he suspects that he’ll never be cynical enough to abandon all hope for them. He believes in Louis like the Earth orbits the Sun. They always come back around.

Louis goes for Harry’s shirt instead of answering straight away, getting it off of him and passing a hand over his chest, just brushing along one of his pecs before getting a good hold on Harry’s bicep and palming over the tattoos there. He traces the lines, digging his fingers in and then stroking the back of one delicately over the blank space where Harry’s been thinking about getting a ship done. He’s not even told Louis that yet.

The way he lifts his head up again is surprisingly confident, sure of himself when he wraps his other hand around the back of Harry’s neck and brings him down close enough that their noses are brushing. It makes Harry shiver.

“I want you to fuck me,” Louis whispers, turning Harry’s knees to jelly. He has to hold on tighter, slumping even more against Louis when he feels his nails snake sharply down his back and one of his hands sink into his back pocket, squeezing hard at his ass. “I want to show up at that party,” he breathes, nuzzling against Harry’s cheek and practically whimpering as he forces the rest of his words out, “with a bruise I’m not gonna be able to explain.”

Harry can recognize this as a silent fuck you to all their exhausting complications, and he nods. They haven’t gotten anywhere in so long, haven’t even _tried_ , but this feels like movement. “Yeah,” Harry says, his voice breaking. “That’s -- fuck, I want that.”

His dick is already hard, pressing against his jeans so much that Louis has to feel the heat from it. His hips buck forward, rocking against him while simultaneously pulling him down and toward the couch, pressing him against it with a firm hand against the center of his chest. His other sheaths him with tenderness, cupping the back of his head to keep it from hitting the sharp edges of the arm as he falls down against him. Louis' body is a map that he wants to take apart from continents to cities, to relearn all his favorite places now that he has him spread out just for himself again.

He sits back, licking hungrily at his own lips as he takes in the sight of Louis, already half on display as he unbuttons his jeans and pulls at them and his briefs all in one go. Harry wants to kiss him everywhere because he's never loved the whole of someone like he does with Louis. He's always loved in fragments, in bits and idiosyncrasies, but when it comes to him, it’s everything.

"I'm gonna,” Harry starts, nodding, not even sure where he’s going with it. He trails his hands down Louis' hips, easing over him so he can speak just below his ear. "Want you to feel me in you all night."

Harry can’t wait much longer. Louis snickers when he trips his way over to his overnight bag and comes back with a condom and a bottle of lube. He wets his fingers with Louis’ eyes on him, and then helps him bend his knees up, spreading them out and turning his whole body into something of an invitation.

“Fuck,” Harry cuts out, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth as he circles two fingers around Louis’ hole, just teasing the rim until he can feel him clenching to try and get them inside. It’s the sort of detail that he’d missed the last time they did this, when Louis had been there and gone so quickly that he couldn’t even have time to appreciate the way his body responds to him.

“Hey, c’mon,” Louis breathes out, bringing one hand up to his own face, scrubbing it along his cheek and stuffing his fingers tight into his own hair as he rocks down, moving his hips in desperate little circles.

Instead of giving into his plea, he holds one of Louis’ hands and pours lube down two of his fingers, stroking them until they’re wet and drawing them down. “Show me. I wanna see you.”

He looks indignant at being told what to do, but Louis follows through with it, never shy when Harry wants to see him on display. The way he does it to himself is different to how Harry works him open, not as easy or as fluid, but Harry’s eyes on him make him go at it with more fervor, choking on a sound trying to leave his lungs when he finally gets to the second knuckle.  “Like that?” he asks.

Harry’s baffled by the thought that anyone _couldn’t_ when he wants the image burned on the inside of his eyelids. He gives Louis the approval he’s seeking, murmurs to him how good he looks, palming his own cock while he watches. It’s easier than explaining that the way Louis’ face is strained with pleasure and exertion is the most luxe thing he’s ever seen in his life -- how he’d file the thought of him like that away for nights when he wanted him badly and couldn’t have him -- how he’d easily take the place of even his wildest fantasies.

“Do you do this to yourself? Think of me?” Harry loops his fingers around Louis’ wrist, holding him there to guide his finger a few times before he greedily eases them out to replace with his own. It takes nerve to ask, but that’s Harry.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Louis whispers, and Harry huffs out a laugh that halts when Louis whispers, “Did last night, though,” making Harry’s fingers stutter in their movement. Louis bucks down for more, bossy without saying a word. They’re both ready, Louis’ _more_ than ready, and Harry has neglected his own cock in favor of watching.

He gets out of his pants and let them fall to the floor, watching as Louis rolls onto his back and rests one arm over his head and fists his cock with his free hand. Harry climbs between his legs and bats away Louis’ hand to replace it with his own, and Louis rocks his hips up to his touch, making a desperate noise in his throat.

“What?” Harry asks, cheeky, his dimple showing when he smirks. “What is it you need, Louis?” He rips open the condom and rolls it on, glancing down at his own fingers working until Louis yanks him forward by his necklaces and bunches them into his fist. The sudden pressure, the sting of it, makes Harry gasp, makes him want more. He drags the head of his cock against Louis’ slippery hole. “That what you want?”

“Would you just--” Louis bites, but Harry presses in before he can finish his demand, helpless to make either of them wait any longer when they’re right _there_ and Louis looks so beautiful and flushed. He might disappear when this is over, they might not do this again for a while, but right now he feels like he belongs to Harry. The thought overwhelms him, makes him rougher than he means to be when he thrusts in and fucks a cry out of both of them.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispers and bows his head, curls falling into his eyes. Louis curls his hand around the side of his neck and presses his thumb into the base of it, lightly, but it’s enough to make Harry open his eyes to stare at Louis. The look on his face says it’s not an accident, that he means what he’s doing, and when Harry nods, Louis presses harder, forcing a sigh out of Harry.

“I want it harder,” Louis says, and Harry obliges, content to do exactly as Louis tells him. “Yeah,” he whispers, “Fuck, Harry, that’s so--”

The thumb on his throat lets up so Louis can bunch the chains of Harry’s necklaces into his fist again. “Yes,” Harry says, before Louis can even ask if it’s okay. “Do that, keep doing that,” he whispers, frantic, arching his neck to give Louis more room to tighten his grip. When he does, Harry’s eyes roll back and he breathes harder through his nose, amazed at how fucking much he _likes_ that when they’d never even talked about it before.

Louis’ pupils are blown and Harry’s fairly certain he hasn’t even blinked, he’s watching him so intently. He loosens his grip and leans up to kiss Harry on the neck where the necklaces dug in, and he trusts Louis so much, he’d trust him with anything, with the air he breathes, and Louis must know that. He must know how much of him he has. They kiss, then, and despite how frantically they’re fucking it’s still good and reassuring. Louis tilts his head back and Harry hooks his leg over his shoulder, fucking him deep and slower now, watching Louis’ face. His neck is spread out for him, long and beautiful and flushed.

“You want…?” Harry brushes his thumb over Louis’ eyebrows, pushes his damp hair back from his forehead, and moves his hand down the side of his face and then lightly over the base of his throat. Louis covers his hand with his own and adds pressure, and Harry follows through, in awe of the way Louis seems so close just from _that_ , judging by the way he goes from eager to desperate. His hips rock up in a way Harry recognizes, and he knows he’s close.

They could be anywhere in the world, he thinks, and he wouldn’t ever pass up the opportunity to have Louis this way. He has the brash thought, as Louis presses Harry’s hand down even harder on his throat, that _no one_ else has been here, no one else has done this, and he’s blissed out enough to believe that could be the truth.

“Ask me if you can come,” Harry mumbles, and Louis squints his eyes shut, hesitant to give in even in the throes of this, but he bites his lip and finally whispers a _please_ that makes Harry nod, makes him fuck him with his hips angled just so.

Louis’ eyes shine and they never move from Harry’s as he whispers encouragements to him, nonsense, really, but enough to make Louis gasp when Harry jerks his cock once and twice before he comes all over his belly and clenches tight around Harry’s cock.

“God, you’re so--” Harry whispers, bends down to kiss him slow. Louis’ hand creeps up to his collarbone again and he scratches him hard, makes Harry gasp against his lips.

“Tell me when,” Louis rasps, and Harry blurts out “ _now_ ,” and every muscle in his body clenches tight and Louis pulls his necklaces again. His vision goes blurry and white for a second as he comes, and all of the pent-up energy in his body seems to leave him, and he turns limp against Louis’ chest, damp and messy and shaking.

Louis reaches for him and Harry presses up, lets Louis cradle his face and press kisses all over it. He would fight for his affection, he thinks, he would give anything to be at the receiving end of it, and it’s in moments like those that he wonders why he ever pushed him away in the first place. Why would he ever be afraid of someone treating him so carefully? In what universe will he ever find anyone who knows him better?

“You alright?” Harry asks, studying Louis’ face, the glowy combination of sweat and sex flush. They both hiss when he pulls out, each of them sensitive and spent.

“‘m fine,” Louis answers, carding through Harry’s hair.

Harry planks over him, kisses his jaw and the center of his throat, a silent apology for hurting him at all -- and an excuse to stall, too, to avoid the peripheral view that doesn’t include Louis. His legs tremble when he moves slowly to his feet, but it’s only to relocate himself further down the couch. He tongues the soft skin of Louis’ belly to lick away the traces of come there, making Louis’ muscles go taut beneath his touch and reach for him.

“C’mere,” he whispers, and when Harry kisses him again, Louis licks into his mouth almost before their lips touch, proving a point.

“Tell me to move,” Louis says after a minute. “Or I’m going to fall asleep right here in the next twenty seconds.”

“I’m afraid we have to,” Harry says, reaching for Louis’ wrists to drag him up. “We’re already so fucking late.”

“I know.” Louis scrubs his face with his palms and presses both into his eye sockets. “I know. I just…”

There’s worry, there, and a hesitance that Harry understands. They’ll leave this room and split up for the rest of the night, and Harry will have even more questions once they’re apart than he had after the last time they’d fucked. He’d never wish for their relationship to accommodate more casual sex than this intense, life altering kind, the sort that leaves them trembling and weak, but it certainly complicates things.

“Hey,” Harry says, reaching for Louis’ hand. He turns it over to find the small tattoos there and kisses them, overcome by something he can’t really explain. “You won’t ever lose me.”

It’s simpler than _I love you_ , but just as true. The words change Louis’ face into something Harry can’t read. He looks conflicted and hesitant, but he doesn’t look scared. “I know,” he nods, but doesn’t elaborate.

Harry watches him get dressed, gingerly, maneuvering his jeans in order to avoid what must be a tender spot on his hip. There’s a small red mark on the base of his throat, and Harry notices it at the same time Louis does when he looks in the mirror.

“We should ring for a car,” Louis says, his voice hoarse. “Two cars, actually.”

“I’ll do it.” Harry tugs his t-shirt the rest of the way over his chest and picks his phone up from the floor. While he waits for a ring, he notices Louis staring at his throat and his hand covers his necklaces, plucking at their charms as he requests their rides to the after party.

It starts to sink in, now; the realization of this night’s impermanence, how _stupid_ they are for risking a fuck in a dressing room in the first place. Harry feels antsy, eager to hold onto Louis, but there’s so much between them. The obstacles seem endless.

“Here,” he says, reaching behind himself to unclasp one of his necklaces. He crosses the room to where Louis is putting his arm through the sleeve of his coat near the door. “Wear this tonight. I think I’ll feel better if…” He stops, clears his throat. “I just want to know you’re wearing it.”

He avoids his eyes as he hooks it at the back of Louis’ neck and then tugs his t-shirt forward to make sure it’s hidden well beneath the fabric. He presses his fingers over it and Louis covers his hand with his own and then kisses him, soft and a little sad, but when he pulls back Louis has set his face into what Harry can recognize as fake enthusiasm.

“This will be fun, right?”

Harry nods, and forces a smile. If Louis can fake it, then he should try, too. “Ready to see Ed school me at karaoke?”

“It’s Ed’s party and we’re just throwing it, aren’t we?” Louis flicks a curl away from Harry’s forehead and smiles, closed-lipped, but he’s staring hard at Harry’s lips. “Alright, one more,” he says, and beckons Harry closer with a hand curled round his shoulder, kissing him once, warm and firm. His so carefully constructed facade has crumbled slightly when he looks at Harry again with heavy eyes and one hand on the doorknob. “Miss you.”

It’s those two words that keep Harry from letting him leave, and he crowds him up against the door, lacing their fingers together and pinning them back against the door. He swore he would be okay, and yet… “Why do I feel like I can’t do this?”

The rhetorical question is cut off when Harry kisses him again, telling himself that it’s the last time, that he can’t tie up another selfish minute with Louis when hundreds of people are waiting on their arrival. He swallows hard and pulls back just to stare at him, and he really, really hadn’t planned on saying it tonight, but Louis feels like sand slipping through his fingers, and he _has_ to tell him.

“I love you,” he says; the most honest thing he’s said all day.

Louis doesn’t say anything, but Harry didn’t expect him to. His eyes do go wide and glassy, and he stares so intensely at him that Harry has to reach over him to grab the door handle, shooing him out. “Alright, god, just go. I’ll see you there.”

With a final glance over his shoulder, Louis walks out, and Harry closes the door, hanging onto the handle just to keep himself upright.

 

Louis

Playing Madison Square Garden for the first time had been at the top of Louis’ list of achievements since the day he found out they’d booked it. It was surreal and humbling to be stood on that stage with his best friends. He’ll remember that forever, and that’s what went through his mind when the show started -- _I’ll always remember this_. All the best moments, when he thinks back, were to do with the lads or the rest of their team, or Ed joining them on stage, or the look Harry gave him right before they walked on.

He knew the night would be memorable, is the thing. He just didn’t expect his memories to link to anything other than the most obvious choices -- the crowd, the after party, having his entire family there.

Certainly he never expected the takeaway from Madison Square Garden was getting fucked on the couch in the dressing room by his best friend and band mate.

He waits until the door clicks shut behind him to wick away the frustrated tear at the corner of his eye with the backs of his fingers. He inhales wetly, exhales slow, and walks away. That’s all, he thinks; that’s all he can afford.

But it’s not like anyone would suspect anything if they noticed him crying. The five of them have all shed a few happy tears that night, and anyway he plans to sort himself out on the drive to the after party. He’s still sore and buzzing from sex, and his quiff has fallen significantly, and the Town Car is quiet, leaving too much empty head space for his own anxious thoughts and memories to come creeping back in.

It’s just that all he can think about is what he’s done with Harry, and how Harry still thinks he’s with Eleanor -- hell, _everyone_ still thinks he’s with Eleanor. There’s Taylor to consider, as well, and he doesn’t feel good about that. He’s been selfish and reckless with Harry’s heart, and he didn’t deserve for Harry to tell him that he loved him. It’s what broke him, in the end. The look on his face, the careful honesty and the knowing that Louis wouldn’t say it back to him but just giving it to him, anyway. Harry is so generous, Louis thinks, and it makes his eyes sting again. He blinks a few times and exhales through his mouth, misting up the glass when he leans his temple against it.

He needs a drink, desperately, and when the car stops along the curb of the Hudson and security helps get him inside without a fuss, he makes a beeline for the bar. If he has any hope for making it through the night without everyone seeing right through him, he’s going to need some sort of barrier so that no one realizes how broken up he feels about all of this, how he’s managed to complicate not only his own life, but Harry’s, too.

Perrie and Zayn are the first to migrate over to him, which is good; talking to them will help him feel more normal, he thinks. It’ll be good practice for dealing with everyone else.

“What took you so long, mate?” Zayn circles an arm around both of his shoulders and gives him a squeeze. He’s relaxed, the way he always is when Perrie’s around, and Louis loves him like this -- in his element, the Zayn that not many people get to see. The two of them haven’t had it easy, but they’re good together. Louis envies it.

“I just got held up, mate. Everything alright?” he asks, so Zayn won’t ask him first.

“No one’s totally fucked yet. You didn’t miss much.”

“You were so good, Louis,” Perrie says, easing past Zayn to give him a hug and an air-kiss on the cheek. “All of you. It was amazing.”

Louis wrinkles his nose, going faux-bashful under the attention. “Did you have a good time, then?”

Louis reaches for his drink while Perrie answers him, ignoring any and all possible looks he may receive when he downs three gulps without taking a breath. It works in his favor that the ballroom of the hotel is packed to the brim with people, some they know and some they don’t, and everyone’s attention is divided into so many different places that he doesn’t have to worry about anyone focusing on him for too long.

Niall and Ed start up the first round of karaoke, some Take That song that Louis hasn’t heard in ages. Harry’s still not there.

The energy in the room makes it hard to stay introspective. It’s difficult to be selfish in a crowd full of people who are all happy and proud and excited. By his second drink, he’s actually enjoying himself as he stands next to his mum and heckles the people singing karaoke, happy to keep her company.

More people make their way up to the stage, flicking through song choices and singing along at the top of their lungs whenever they can all manage to agree on one. Even Taylor makes her way in there, and Louis smiles to himself at her dancing, at how alive and unabashed she is -- sort of like Harry, if he’s honest. As for the two of them, they’re next to nothing alike, but he feels no malice toward her. It’s best for him if he just doesn’t think about her at all, actually.

Ed drags him up eventually, but it doesn’t take much convincing for Louis to ham it up on stage, especially not when he’s surrounded by his best mates. Belting into a microphone is a decent way of temporarily forgetting how fucked up everything is, anyway. He knows that from experience.

When he turns away from the screen and back toward the crowd, he notices Harry walk in, long and skinny and capturing the attention of everyone in the room. It amazes Louis -- the effect he has on people, how crowds always manage to part for him. He never fully understood the phrase _could stop you in your tracks_ until he met Harry.

He doesn’t come straight to the stage. Louis watches him make a detour for a drink and then seek out his mum. Taylor’s noticed him, as well, and joins the two of them, making them smile in a way that’s so effortless that Louis would be jealous if not for the fact that Harry’s collar is hiding prints from his fingers and he still has to smell a bit like sex.

When they walk away from Anne a few minutes later, it doesn’t matter how good or ridiculously loud he and Ed are singing, because suddenly they’re the ones that everyone has their eyes on when they make their way up to the stage.

If Harry feels as broken as Louis after the way they left things back in that dressing room, it’s impossible to detect. Harry’s good at this, impeccable at putting on a show, and when he slinks an arm around Niall and shares a mic to belt _Angels_ , there’s no way anyone would ever pick up on anything being off with him. Their shoulders brush on stage, but they don’t talk, don’t get close enough to share a microphone or make eye contact during one of a number of singalongs led by Ed who, as predicted, is killing it.

Everyone is sweaty and plastered and out of breath when the DJ finally takes over again, and despite the fact that Louis’ already drunk, he passes up having a chat with everyone to go for another. The last time he saw Harry he had been laughing at something Taylor had whispered to him, and Louis hadn’t noticed that he’d broken away to follow him until he feels his presence at his side, so warm and familiar, eying him over the rim of his champagne glass.

“Your staring problem’s getting out of hand.”

Harry laughs. “Having a good time?”

Louis wishes that he wouldn’t bother with small talk when his _I love you_ is still ringing in his ears. It’s not enough to take precedence over spending the rest of the night watching him with Taylor, bearing witness to the joy that came easily as they sang and joked together. They looked natural; _good,_ even. It hurts like hell no matter what happened earlier, even knowing what he knows.

“It’s okay,” he nods, voice sounding more optimistic than he actually feels. “You sounded great up there. Really letting your talent shine.”

Harry grins, cheeky, because he’d stood up on that stage and moaned like a cow into the mic until someone threatened to take it away from him. “Why, thank you, Louis.”

Louis averts his eyes, looking out across the dim room, his eyes catching Perrie and Zayn sharing a kiss in the corner of the room before his gaze slides back to Harry. He’s looking at him so intensely that Louis stiffens, his body straightening under the attention because he doesn’t know what else to do with it when they’re surrounded by people and he can’t just back him into the nearest surface and kiss that look off his face.

“Gonna be a weird night, I think. Kind of already is,” Louis says. He watches Harry knowingly, picking up his drink again and angling his body a little closer to Harry’s -- can’t help himself, not when he swears he can still feel him everywhere, touching him and kissing him and filling him. “Guess we should just get really fucked up, right?”

“Right,” Harry agrees, nodding. He leans over the bar to order more drinks and offers one to Louis after a moment, clinking their glasses together lightly. Harry looks like he wants to say something, and Louis doesn’t think he wants to hear it.

He licks his lips and leans close to Louis’ ear, placing his fingers lightly over the charm where it rests against his chest. “I wish I could tell you what I’m thinking right now.”

Louis shakes his head. “Please don’t,” he mutters. It’s a strange moment, so charged that Louis tries to force a smile just in case anyone happens to look over and see them staring daggers two inches from each others’ faces.

“Should go check on my mum,” Harry says, jerking his head to the side as he steps backward.

Louis nods, his head spinning. “Yeah.”

Harry bobs his head to the music as he walks away, turning it back on just like that. No one will suspect a thing, whereas Louis has to guzzle the last of his drink in one go before he leaves the bar. He checks his phone on his way back to the stage, for once desperate to be the first one out of there, but it’s kind of his party -- he can’t very well leave before it’s over.

If Harry can do it, though, he can, too. He just refuses to let his brain acknowledge Harry’s hand around Taylor’s waist in the corner of the room, and throws himself all over everyone else, instead. He convinces Liam to eat the strangest food on the plate full of fancy hors d'oeuvres at their table. He comes really close to paying Ed to streak through the party.

When he takes a photo with his mum, he makes like he’s putting it on Instagram only to -- bless autocorrect -- drunkenly tap out a message to Harry, who he can see milling around by the book of karaoke songs. His shirt’s untucked and his hair has fallen, lips red and eyes glassy visible even from halfway across the room. _u should defo sing adele_ , he types, grinning to himself because he is absolutely drunk if he is so amused by the first nonsensical thought that popped into his head.

“Can I see it?” his mum asks, and Louis scrambles to find the photo again, careful not to let her hold onto it for too long in case Harry sends a text in return. He feels it vibrate just as he pulls it away. “Send that to me, will you?” she says, and Louis nods, already distracted by Harry’s text.

_You know my heart more than I do, we were the greatest me and you .xx_

Louis is going to murder him, maybe. He’s really in love with Harry, and he’s really drunk and sort of sad, too, and _frustrated_ because he brought this on himself, but already he can’t help the reply that he types out a moment later: _i’ll be better to you xx_

Sliding his pocket back into his jeans, he tries his best to be subtle when he glances around to see Harry, and it’s the glow of his phone that he notices first. He’s sat on a bench with a knee up to his chest, looking alone and distracted, and only Louis knows why. They’re too far apart to see details, but Louis can fill those in himself, and doesn’t need to see the whites of Harry’s eyes to know exactly when he looks back at him for a long moment.

His phone vibrates in his palm, and Louis glances down to see it: _Still feel your hands on me and it’s making me miss you too much_.

And Louis is just about to write something back when he receives another message, sent immediately after the previous: _I don’t think I’m coming back to the hotel tonight._

Stacked atop one another, those two sentiments look like they might have been sent from two different people. His stomach sinks as he stares down at the screen, rereading it so many times that it dims from being idle.

Louis wants to resent Harry for telling him so directly that he’d be staying the night with Taylor, but he would’ve seen them leave hand in hand, anyway. Maybe he’s doing him a favor. Maybe it’s what Louis needs to finally give up on the idea that he and Harry are ever going to be more than a fuck and an _I love you_ , because even the best fuck and the most heartfelt admission can’t seem to bring them together. They’ll orbit each other forever, Louis thinks, and he’s drunk enough to have such soppy and awful thoughts, which means he probably needs to leave. He grabs his coat from the back of his chair and starts his goodbyes.

It’s ten minutes later when he settled into the back seat of a cab that he finally answers Harry with nothing more than _ok._

\--

After a show that had been all that anyone could talk about and consistently build up for months, it’s not easy to come back down. London feels slow-paced in comparison, even though it’s anythingbutwith every storefront adorned with wreaths and colorful lights and hoards of people skittering about to finish up their holiday shopping. It’s just Louiswho sees a change in everything. He’s turned himself into a bit of hermit since their return.

His mum asked him to come home to Doncaster and Liam tried to coerce him into tagging along on his nights at Funky Buddha, but he made up excuses, even feigned a stomach flu to get out of it all. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the effort, but he can’t seem to do much apart from hide out in his living room with dodgy take-out and the first season of Homeland on DVD.

It’s definitely easier than avoiding questions about Eleanor and hearing about Harry and Taylor since that’s all anyone seems to want to talk about lately. He knows she’s in England, that she followed him back to Cheshire and they’re _something_ now. He hasn’t worked up the nerve to find out.

The first time he actually makes an effort to leave the house is for his 21st birthday party. His mum and Dan pull out all the stops and invite _everyone,_ including Harry. It’s good fun, actually. It’s always easy to be in better spirits once he’s actually around his family and his friends from home. Everyone takes turns posing with him behind his amazing, ridiculous, perfect birthday cake, and he even smiles when he’s sandwiched between Harry and Liam. Things feel as close to normal as they can given the circumstances.

He doesn’t let himself think into it when Harry ducks out earlier than everybody, off to some other party in Leeds with Jonny after Louis repeatedly insists that it’s alright. Taylor’s already gone, but Harry is Harry and stopping into three parties in a single night is normal for him. He’s in high demand.

When he’s home and alone again, all the realities start to weigh on him. He misses Eleanor, in a strange way, though he doesn’t regret the end of their relationship. It’s just the lack of company and the loss of something comfortable coupled with the small part of him that had hoped Harry might follow him home after the early birthday party. He doesn’t know what he expected to happen then, but he’s certain it would be better than the reality, of the continued sense of not knowing what they are or how Harry feels or how _he_ feels.

If it was as simple as telling him, _I’m single, let’s be together_ , Louis would just say it. It’s what he wanted years ago, after all, when he and Harry fell into each other so quickly that, as far as Louis could see, the future was made up entirely of them together; _properly_ together. Still best friends, but best friends with a different title, no matter how difficult it would be.

But something so definitive had driven Harry away. He wasn’t ready to be with just one person, and he didn’t want to ruin what they had, he said. Louis hadn’t seen it that way, but for the sake of their friendship he backed off, and he never brought it up again, and they’d spent too much time skirting around each other and taking what they could get, in some fucked up limbo.

\--

The trip to L.A. comes at the perfect time. Normally he likes a break from the hectic promo schedule that keeps them from finding any semblance of a routine, but Louis is so ready to get back to work if only to be guaranteed company, to be distracted by tasks and schedules and the same ten interview questions.

The first night in America is just downtime before they’re meant to come back together for rehearsals. Harry’s quick to meet up with Taylor while the rest of them stop at the hotel first, but the thing is, none of them can decide what they want to actually _do._

Shamrock is Zayn’s idea. He says he’s had a design in mind for weeks, or maybe he’s just bored, but either way, it’s kind of a tradition when they touch down with more than a day to spend in LA: Shamrock first. Louis’ ansty enough to say yes without having to think about it, and they’re letting smoke out from the balcony and calling down for a car in record time. Paul looks at them skeptically when he follows them into the lift and they ignore his crack about their poor mums having to look at all their _bloody tattoos_.

“D’you know what you’re going to get, bro?” Zayn asks, elbow propped against the car window. There’s already an obvious crowd when they arrive, and for a moment they’re both distracted by it, confused. Louis doesn’t know how anyone could’ve been tipped off of their arrival. He shakes it off and does his best to ignore the shock of nerves he feels at the thought of having to be shuffled inside amidst so many people.

“I’m not sure,” he says after a moment, ignoring the crowd in favor of answering Zayn’s question. “There’s something that I’ve been thinking, but I might change my mind. Dunno.”

“These artists are sick, though, so whatever you choose, like...it’s gonna be good, you know?” Zayn laughs, and Louis looks over at him to see his eyes still rimmed slightly red from their last hit.

They pound fists before filing out of the car. Louis adjusts his beanie over his forehead, something to do with his hands while people turn their attention from the entrance of the parlour to the two of them leaving their car and start to notice who it is; they weren’t waiting for them, then.

Next to the door is a burly guy Louis just vaguely recognizes, and even after he lets them in, he still has that nagging sensation of _where have I seen him_?

Zayn knows a few of the artists there, of course. A sharp _crack_ makes Louis turns his head to see two people playing pool at the table in the middle of the room, and he follows Zayn back to the reception area, arms folded across his chest. Neither of them have appointments, but they don’t have anywhere to go, either.

“You cool to chill for a bit?” Zayn asks, eyebrows raised at Louis, who nods and shrugs, making it clear that’s exactly what he plans to do.

They’re told to have relax, so they shuffle away from the counter, momentarily aimless before the screaming outside swells, loud even through the closed doors. Louis looks out there, first, and then to his right, because no one seems to be coming inside -- and maybe he ought not to be, but he’s still surprised to see the back of an orange beanie and a black t-shirt and curls peeking out from behind that he’d recognize anywhere.

That’s the back of Taylor’s head, too, and -- fuck, that’s where he knew that security guard. He was with Taylor at MSG, too. Zayn gives him a look like, _well, the crowd makes sense now_ , and Louis tries to smile, but his eyes are fixed on the backs of Harry and Taylor’s heads as someone in front of them snaps a photo.

Louis looks away when they start to walk toward them again; let Zayn greet him, he thinks, and he does. Taylor says hello to him first, and Louis looks up at her because, Christ, she’s tall, and smiles, closed-lipped, but doesn’t offer a hug. She has a bag tucked over one arm and the other wrapped around Harry’s shoulder, resting her chin there as he talks over his tattoo with Zayn. Louis peeks at it, careful not to stare too hard; it’s on his left arm, something big.

Harry catches his eye and, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. He turns so Louis can see it, the lines fine and dark and red around the edges. When the design registers, Louis almost jumps; it’s a large ship and a torn up Union Jack.

Louis was going to get a compass. That’s the only thing he had in mind. He’s so surprised he can only perform a series of facial tics -- eyebrows raised, then a frown and a nod, a nose twitch. “Cool,” he settles on, and scratches his forearm.

“Thank you,” Harry says, too polite.

“Pool?” Zayn nudges him, and Louis can’t follow after him fast enough, happy to ignore the pleased look on Taylor’s face as she watches Harry get his arm wrapped up.

With a shaking hand, he reaches for a pool stick and warns Zayn that he’s terrible before he can notice himself. Zayn laughs it off, because he doesn’t care, he just does things because they’re fun and not to win, and that’s why he’ll probably beat Louis.

When he bends down to line up a shot, Louis sees Harry still stood by the reception desk, and, because they’re _them_ , he glances over at the exact right time to nod at Louis, who looks away, takes a shot, and sinks the cue ball. Lovely.

It’s madness outside of Shamrock when Harry and Taylor finally leave together, and Louis is glad he’s not a part of it. The sting of the needle is his focus point for the next hour, but after a while it’s somewhat calming, the burn of it, the knowledge that it will end with something beautiful.

\--

They all take their lunch outside the next day while they break from rehearsals. The five of them, their entire _team_ , actually, can’t get enough of the sun while it’s still at their fingertips, warming the back of Louis’ neck as he eats pasta salad with the paper plate balanced on his lap. There are enough people milling about that Louis can get lost in the mix, though he’s mostly beside Zayn, glancing up occasionally to see Harry flit around in his new-old Rolling Stones t-shirt and sunglasses, charming everyone in sight.

Taylor’s not around, which is a plus, at least. Louis would rather see Harry flirt with _everyone_ rather than just one person, because he so rarely ever focuses on one person, unless of course that person is Louis, who has always been an exception. He’s so used to his attention being fixed on him that even slightly less of it makes him crave more.

Louis’ t-shirt is tight, and it feels even tighter with a belly full of food. He tugs it down around his hips on their way back inside and, when he looks down, catches sight of his new tattoo, a part of his body now that he’s still not quite used to, but he loves it. He traces the fine lines as he walks, still obsessed with the way Freddy’s linework looks three dimensional.

“That’s a wall,” he hears, and feels someone yank him by his right arm in time to avoid what would have been an embarrassing if not painful interaction with the doorjamb. Louis looks down and recognizes Harry’s fingers clutching tight over his new tattoo, and he ought to have let go by now, but he keeps his hold on it.

“You could’ve asked if you wanted to see it,” Louis mutters, pulling his arm back against his belly.

Harry laughs softly and leans up against the doorway, blocking Louis’ only way in. “Does it say ‘home’?”

“Can you read?”

“I’m only just learning,” Harry says, his tone regretful. Louis’ mouth twitches, and Harry grins wide. “Looks sick.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, shrugging. The thing they’re not addressing feels like it needs to be addressed, so Louis goes first. “I planned to get it, like. For a while.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know,” Harry murmurs, touching his left bicep with his right hand, his finger skimming over the lines of his new ship. “It’s…”

“Weird?” Louis finishes his sentence, and Harry nods, still touching the ship. Louis hasn’t seen it since yesterday and all he wants to do is reach out to touch it himself, to inspect and claim some part of it when it’s still so fresh on his skin. He bites his lip and folds his arms over his chest, concealing his compass.

“I don’t mind,” Harry says after a moment, quiet enough so that the few members of the crew walking by won’t think anything of it.

Louis plays dumb, lifts his chin and narrows his eyebrows. “Don’t mind what?”

“If they’re connected.” Harry reaches out his hand again and touches the inside of Louis’ elbow, a touch that wouldn’t look like more than a friendly poke to a passerby. “I like it.”

It’s so nonchalant. Harry might as well be telling him that he likes his t-shirt or a new pair of shoes, not something that he’s had imprinted on his body forever and the fact that it can be tied to him. Louis hadn’t meant for it to -- maybe, he didn’t actually _choose_ to have something done with Harry in mind, but he’s there anyway, always, and Louis sees no point in denying something that could have been subconscious. Sometimes he wonders how people can look at him and not see Harry’s name written all over his body.

“You would.” He feels lame still pestering him, but he can’t tell him that he likes it, too. It’s nice that their thoughts were moving in the same direction even when their reality has felt like the opposite. It feels like there’s one thing after another standing in their way, like he can never actually pull the reel tight enough to keep hold of Harry.

Harry rolls up the sleeve of his t-shirt further up his bicep to expose the full length of the ship.  “Want to see again?”

Their brief encounter last night at Shamrock hadn’t satisfied Louis’ urge to take in every detail, to memorize this new part of Harry’s body that he hasn’t yet gripped and kissed and made his own. He can’t pass up the chance at a closer look, so he nods, stepping the slightest bit closer when Harry angles himself into him and tenses the muscles in his arm.

It’s still healing, still needs time for the full effect of how much detail went into the piece, but it’s already incredible. Louis feels breathless while he inspects it with much more care than he’d been able to give with flashing lights all around and someone else on Harry’s arm.

He just gives him a look in favor of saying anything, catching his eyes when Harry’s shift down to him, curious like he’s trying to read Louis’ mind. They’re still in an awkward place, blocking a door that Louis literally almost ran into, but he still can’t stop himself from bringing one finger up and stroking the back of it along Harry’s tattoo. His hands have been stinging with the need to touch and now that he’s finally been invited to, it’s hard not to be greedy.

“It’s nice, right?” Harry frowns.

He seeks approval without thinking around Louis, always asking if he’s done alright or checking for a smile to gauge if he’s pleased with him. It’s the single most endearing thing of Louis’ life, probably, and it makes him feel important, like he’s still in high standing even when they’re not quite as functional as they used to be.

No matter how hard it is for him to say, it’s impossible to be stingy with his words when Harry’s so effortlessly cute, and something sweet is on the tip of Louis’ tongue right before the door jars open suddenly, barely giving them time to step back.

“Time to get back to work, lads,” Paul tells them, already beckoning Zayn and Niall over with an all too familiar gesture. If Louis knows anything at all about Liam, he’s probably already onstage doing warm-ups.

He doesn’t feel ready for their brief exchange to come to an end, but there’s no way to buy them time that isn’t completely obvious, and so he nods, passing a quick look in Harry’s direction as a silent close to their conversation before walking in ahead of him.

\--

Their flight back to London leaves immediately after The X Factor, and everyone but Harry is on it. Louis doesn’t even try not to think about it; it _tortures_ him for every waking moment on the plane, and being back at home with the knowledge that Harry’s still on a brief pre-Christmas holiday with Taylor sucks the Christmas spirit right out of him.

He turns off his phone and doesn’t unpack and just _sleeps,_ which is one of the benefits of having days off: no alarm set, no real obligations. He’s jetlagged when he wakes up, has no idea what time it, just that it’s two days before Christmas and one day before his twenty-first birthday. Having already celebrated it, he doesn’t feel badly about not being at all enthusiastic during the train ride back to his mum’s.

His sisters lift his spirits, though, because they can’t even begin to fathom what his daily life is like, and he doesn’t want them to. He hopes, as he puts together one of Phoebe’s robot toys on the floor beside the Christmas tree, that this will be the most complicated part of her day -- waiting for him to figure out which way the batteries slide into the compartment.

Everyone at home seems unburdened even if they’re not, and Louis knows that’s because he’s home and they so rarely get to see him in person, and that makes him happy; or at the very least it makes him try _really_ hard to mask his current state of mind. It’s not very difficult when he’s around all of them, anyway. They deserve better than to see him sulky when he’ll spend so long away from them in the upcoming year.

It’s kind of a terrible time for Harry to be on holiday, though. He keeps coming across blurry pictures of him as he slides through his Twitter feed, photos of him skiing and, on Christmas Eve -- on Louis’ birthday, that is -- sporting a bandaged chin in a pub in Holmes Chapel, home just in time to spend Christmas with his family.

He’s the only one awake by the time _It’s a Wonderful Life_ ends on the night before Christmas, his phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, almost empty. Daisy’s been asleep with her head on his lap for the past hour, and it’s making him tired. There’s something about the way George Bailey looks in the last scene of the movie that makes him feel like he has too much to give and no one to give it to, an awful lot of love without a proper release. He unlocks his phone and rereads the text Harry sent him earlier, the simple _happy birthday xx_ he’d woken up to that morning. It’ll have to be enough, he thinks.

 

Harry

Everything is quieter once Christmas is through. Maybe it’s just that it’s the first day he’s woken up in his bed in the Winstons’ attic and not at a hotel in Los Angeles or a ski resort in Utah or even back home at his mum’s. He always spreads himself too thin, but the past few weeks turned him to paper, and it’s nice to have no need to be anywhere or have anyone to see.

He goes back to London by himself and declines all offers to spend time with his friends there in favor of heading to the shops for a new pair of swim trunks he needs for the trip he’s taking after New Year’s Eve. It’s just an excuse to feel a part of his city again, to breathe it in and take the tube and run unnecessary errands for the sake of feeling like he does actually live there for more than a few days at a time.

Shopping is relatively uneventful; he buys a pair of swim trunks with animals on, a coffee, and then stops at Waitrose to pick up fruit and vegetables to use in the new juicer his mum bought him for Christmas. He’s nose-deep in a bunch of spinach when he hears a familiar voice toward his left and, though there’s no confirmation that it is, in fact, James Corden, he grins as he looks over his shoulder, expectant.

And yes, James is there, but Harry’s smile falters when he sees he’s not alone -- that he’s actually with _Louis_ , which takes a moment for him to process before he can recover and smile at him, too, in an attempt to look normal. Louis is in joggers and a zip-up hoodie, a grey beanie Harry knows for a fact once belonged to him, and is pushing a buggy full of alcohol and paper plates and serviettes. It’s difficult to look away from him even when James is coming toward him with a smile and open arms, eventually blocking Louis from his vision as he brings him in for a hug.

“Alright?” James says, squeezing his arms as he takes a step back and looks at the carrots and spinach in Harry’s hands.

“Good, yeah, what’s going on?” he asks, looking between him and Louis, doing his best to decipher without having to explicitly _ask_ what they’re doing in Waitrose together with loads of party supplies.

“Just asked if James would come along to help me shop for the party,” Louis says, meeting Harry’s eyes. He looks sleepy, sort of thin, unshaven. Harry wants to slip his hands beneath that hoodie and feel how warm he is.

“Right, the party. Cool,” he nods. He won’t bother to mention his New Year’s Eve plans, and he definitely won’t think about last year’s party, how they’d all gotten so fucked and they’d found pieces of bacon on windowsills for weeks afterward. “I was just about to leave, so--”

“I think we’re finished, too, aren’t we?” James says, making toward the checkouts. It’s somewhat awkward to walk through it with them, and to help Louis load the supplies into his Range Rover when they’re finished.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” James says, throwing his arms around Louis for a hug. “I’ve got to get back home. Was lovely to see you both.” He takes a few steps back, waving. “Happy new year!” He calls out, and Harry and Louis reciprocate and wave back to him, each hesitant to turn back toward the other.

Louis’ milling about when Harry finally breaks down and looks at him until Louis looks back, stiffening, as though he’s rejecting the attention in a way Harry’s not used to.

The mess already between them turned to complete wreckage after that night at Ben’s, but he doesn’t know if it’s fair to say he’s been the one fostering it. He left with Taylor after the party and hasn’t actually come up for air since, but Louis has Eleanor, and it makes no sense for him to be angry at Harry for not accepting a card that was never on the table to begin with. Maybe things would be different then.

“So you’ve been busy,” Louis says lightly, tipping his head to the side and eyeing Harry’s chin.

“Suppose so. Skiing was a bit rubbish... well, I mean, it was fine. _I_ was rubbish.”

“Oh, I was actually talking about your Love Actually marathon.”

Harry laughs; he ought to have expected that. “But Hugh Grant is a holiday tradition.”

Louis rolls his eyes, and Harry _did_ expect that. They’re met with an unexpected interruption in the form of a tiny woman, probably in her sixties, who’s clearly doesn’t recognize them. She looks at Harry with her head tilted, smiling a little, and then at Louis, like she’s endeared by something. Harry raises his eyebrows, ready to be a good samaritan and help her find her car or give her directions.

“I’ll take this off your hands, if you don’t mind,” she says, and points to the now empty buggy beside Louis’ car. Louis pushes it over. “You two are just lovely, aren’t you?” She smiles as she says it and starts away, leaving them both stood awkwardly there to pretend they aren’t entirely sure what they meant by that.

Harry laughs first, scratching the back of his neck and glancing over at Louis. There’s nothing he can say about the assumption that won’t come across wrong.

Louis speaks up first. “She probably would’ve given you her number.”

“Too good for me, I think.” Harry grins, relieved by the attempt at lightheartedness.

“I should be getting back. I have all this to unpack,” says Louis, jerking his head toward the car.

And Harry ought to let him go, to leave things at that, but now that he’s stood in front of him, he’s too eager to let him walk away. He feels like he hasn’t seen him in weeks, at least not in any substantial way, and he doesn’t want to go into a new year with things like this.

“I’m not, like, busy right now or anything,” Harry offers, “I could follow you back and help bring everything in.”

Louis sighs, looking defeated but not surprised, and his eyes are slightly pleading as he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair back into his beanie.  “Um, I don’t know. Nah, you don’t have to, like...do that.”

“I know, but...” Harry cuts himself off, chewing on his bottom lip and thinking hard about why he’s so intent on following him home. “We haven’t been speaking much. ” What he really wants to say is _I miss you_ but it seems too much, too out of place after everything that’s happened since New York.

The grunt Louis offers is assent enough for Harry. Tailgating him through London is bizarre, and it gives him too much time to think about what either of them might say.

He’s been alright throughout their unexpected meeting, surprisingly stable considering all the turmoil between them. Actually being with him behind closed doors, somewhere where there’s a bed and a sofa and dozens of other surfaces that he might feel the need to kiss him against, is an entirely different story. As much as he hopes they can find a way to just settle back into normality, he doesn’t know how to go about that. Nothing between them has ever been normal to begin with, really, but at least they’d always been on an even plane. Now it seems as though every move he makes manages to drive an even greater wedge between them, and he hates it.

Once they pull into the drive and park, Harry makes good on his promise to carry arm fulls of bags inside. The entryway to Louis’ house is a familiar mess of strewn clothing items and a football on the floor in the foyer and a pile of battered Vans beside the front door. Harry kicks them aside on his way toward the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Louis mutters as he unzips his jacket, and then starts to pull out the copious amounts of liquor from the shopping bags, along with some snacks that are comically few in comparison.

The sound of crumpling plastic bags the only noise in the quiet kitchen. Harry watches Louis organize the liquor on the countertop. When he realizes that he’s stalling and touching them over just to give his hands something else to do, Harry clears his throat.

“Louis,” he starts, clenching his eyes tight. He wants to just put all his worried thoughts out there so that Louis can confirm them or tell him he’s wrong. He wants to know if it’s the time he’s been spending with Taylor or Louis’ guilt over what they’d done because of Eleanor that’s put all this distance between them. Most of all, he wants to know if Louis regrets it, and why it happened again _now,_ of all times.

Louis must sense what’s coming because he perks up, forcing himself to become more animated like it might change Harry’s mind completely about there being anything to address.

“Jetlag has me like a fucking zombie. How aren’t you exhausted?” He asks as he brushes past Harry on his way to the fridge.

Any other time, Harry would let him off easy -- he would have let him keep up with his defense mechanisms and been merciful enough not to push, but biting his tongue has been getting them nowhere. If he’s hurting him or making things harder, then he wants a chance to explain himself.

“Alright, c’mon.” Harry stops him, looping his fingers around Louis’ wrist and keeping him from walking away again. “Look, I know I’ve been distant.”

“Well, you _have_ been in another country.”

Louis can be so exhausting, and Harry sighs, loud and long as his eyes roll back.

Something about it -- how long suffering it sounded, or how fed-up Harry sounded -- seems to break something in Louis. He pulls his wrist out of Harry’s grasp, roughly, breaking contact without moving from where he’s stood in front of him.

“ _What_? What is that sigh for? What do you want from me, then?” He searches his face and waits for Harry to answer him, but he can’t. “Do you want me to ask you to stay?” His voice catches on the final word, and Louis shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling. “Like, how can I even do that when you’re with...someone else?”

“Louis, I’m so confused,” Harry admits, because he does not understand, now; he must be missing something. “Because I thought--”

“Yeah, I know--”

“Well then _explain_ to me, please,” Harry pleas, his hands held out in front of him in fists that close and open. “Explain why this is happening now.”

“Look, I’m not telling you this to make you feel, like...I’m not trying to stop you from being with Taylor,” Louis says. “ You can do whatever you want.” He finally levels his eyes with Harry’s and swallows hard; Harry can hear it.

“Just...Eleanor and I broke up,” he says, and then stops, as though preparing for Harry to react, but he can’t, yet; he just stares.

“It was actually that same night I came to Ben’s,” he continues in very quiet voice, like he’s ashamed of that part, and Harry can’t easily convince him that it’s not awful to have fucked his best mate right after breaking up with his girlfriend. “I just thought you should know. I know should have told you before.”

Harry’s eyes go wide, fixed on Louis’. For a second he thinks his legs might give out.

“I don’t really know what to say,” he says. His skin is suddenly hot, his head spinning with the knowledge that something so integral to he and Louis not being together is actually not a factor at all. “I really wish would have known that. Or that I knew, like, what that means...or what it was supposed to mean for us.”

Something in Harry tells him he ought to be more upset by this omission and the fact that he’s being told the truth now, after there were so many more convenient opportunities for Louis to be honest about his relationship status, which is, apparently, _single_ , and has been for the entire amount of time that he and Harry have started to hook up again.

“But also, like,” Harry continues, after a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you wait this long, Louis? Things could be so much different right now if, fuck, I don’t know.” He rakes his hands through his hair and swallows, doing his best to make sense of it all.

Louis looks like he was expecting that question, but he’s still doesn’t have an answer prepared, judging by the way he shakes his head and glances around, struggling to expound a reason. “I guess I had it in my head that you’d...like. I dunno. That you’d been waiting around for me and you were finally…trying to move on, d’you know what I mean? Even though, like, before, when I was ready and you weren’t--”

“Hang on--”

“And if Taylor is making you happy…”

“That’s--that’s shit, Louis,” Harry says, surprised what a rush of blood to his head can make him spit out when it hits him so quickly. He’s not angry at _him_ , really, though he does feel it, now, that anger, the expected frustration. Some of it’s directed at himself, too, for being 17 and foolish enough to let the promise of Louis as his boyfriend slip away for fear of wrecking their friendship when he can see now it would’ve done just the opposite. “You had to have known--”

“Known _what_?”

“That I’m--” Harry throws his hands up, baffled. “That if I knew you were an option then this whole month would’ve been so much different.”

“But it’s probably easier to be with her, isn’t it?”

“Don’t do that,” Harry says, his voice quiet but clear. “I don’t need your permission to be with Taylor, but I’m fucking begging for it when it comes to you.” Harry stops and breathes hard, feeling wild. “You know it’s always been like that.”

Louis’ seems to have stopped breathing altogether in the wake of that admission, and, to Harry’s surprise, he takes a few steps forward and rests a placating hand on Harry’s hipbone. Harry always forgets this, the way Louis can settle him with one touch. “You don’t have to beg, Harry, c’mon,” Louis says, sounding contemplative, so different to the strained tone of his voice a second earlier.

He sounds so sure. Harry exhales slowly, and he knows it’s a risk to ask him to clarify, and yet: “What do you want?”

Louis huffs, rolls his eyes and squeezes Harry’s hip. “You... that’s it, you know? It just feels a bit late for that now.”

There’s a big part of Harry that wants to tell him that it’s never too late, that he’s been waiting for another chance for almost two years now, after passing up the greatest thing that’s ever been offered to him. He always thought it would be so simple. He would wait and buy time and never get serious and when Louis came round, that would be _it._ They’d right a wrong.

It’s not so easy now, though. He has another person to think about, someone who he _does_ really like. If Louis wasn’t a consideration, he could fall into Taylor so easily, without question. She’s a great girl -- probably better than he deserves, considering.

Louis fidgets, but doesn’t break the silence. Instead of pressing for some sort of answer, he reaches up and stretches out the collar of his own t-shirt as he takes out Harry’s necklace. He looks sheepish as he lets Harry see, a familiar look of vulnerability on his face that still doesn’t keep him from showing it off.

And Harry’s glad for it, because the sight of his old necklace lying against Louis’ skin is the closest thing to a commitment he’s ever had. It takes his breath away when he thinks about him wearing it all this time, refusing to take it off even while he’s watched Harry try and give himself to someone else. Unthinking, his fingers reach out to touch the small silver charm, his thumb rubbing circles over the front of it.

Louis is closer when Harry looks back at his eyes, and he shrugs, like he’s been caught. “I’m keeping it,” he says, “Even if it’s too late.”

“It’s not that,” Harry whispers, tugging the necklace once and then slipping his hand around the side of Louis’ neck, as easy as that. “I just don’t know, like. I can’t give you any answers yet--”

He can feel that panic start to set in, the same one he felt two years ago when Louis gave him a vague offer, a suggestion that they might turn themselves into something more than best mates who acted like more. That morning he’d booked a plane ticket to New York for New Year’s Eve, and it’s rare that he won’t drop everything for Louis, but he needs time.

“When you’re ready,” Louis says, his voice quiet as he nods once. It’s barely sunk in that he’s single now, just as Harry’s nestling into something new and different. “We can talk.”

WIth Louis so close, Harry can’t possibly be trusted to know what to do with his hands if not to cradle them around Louis’ shoulders and pull him into him, brushing their lips together once and twice, chaste in comparison to their normally earth-shaking kisses, the selfish kind that are often stolen at all the wrong moments. Louis pulls away first, but presses his lips once against Harry’s neck, too intimate and too fast.

The longer Harry stays, the more his resolve will start to weaken. He wants to suggest that they forego any further preparations for Louis’ party and spend the rest of the afternoon on the sofa under the guise of watching a film. It’s just that _watching a film_ never means the same for them as it does for other people and he’s already pushed things. He’s kissed him without sparing a single thought to how Taylor would feel if he could ever actually tell her anything about the two of them.

“I don’t really want to leave you,” Harry confesses, his fingers absently tending to the muscles in Louis’ shoulders. “But I just need time, you know? I need to think and I don’t trust myself around you.” He squeezes his biceps, thumbs digging in. “I just stop thinking and start doing this.”

“You should go, then.” It’s soft, not pushy -- just an open door for Harry to walk out of and hopefully back into again.

Harry nods and, despite knowing that he shouldn’t, he kisses Louis again, just as gentle but a little less fleeting. It feels a bit like the world is ending when he pulls away, and he’s almost certain that apocalyptic sensation means something that he should be paying close attention to. Louis’ lips could feed him answers to anything and maybe this wouldn’t be so hard if he would just _listen._

“I’ll see you after New Year’s then, alright?” He doesn’t mention whenexactly because even _he_ doesn’t know. He’s already agreed to another holiday after and telling Louis that he still plans on going might make him think he’s already made up his mind.

Louis looks nervous about saying goodbye. Still, with more bravery than Harry would have if the tables were turned, he nods, stepping back to let him move around him.

“Yeah. I’ll see you, Harry.”

 

Louis

The party’s even bigger than last year’s. His place is bigger, as well, which means not one but two coaches full of people arrive around ten, dressed up in sequins and pressed trousers, smelling of fragrances that quickly get lost in the scent of food wafting in from the kitchen. He’s another year older but he’s no better at cooking, and anyway he couldn’t prepare enough food for this many people if he tried, so Louis asked Sarah’s Kitchen to step in with tables full of snacks to keep people from drinking on an empty stomach.

He spared no expense on the DJ, either, who’s set up a table against the wall of his living room, where he’s cleared out the couches to make room for people to dance, if they want to. No one does much other than drink and eat loads leading up to midnight.

It’s sick. It’s a really great party, it’s _so_ much fun, and Louis will remember it for years, but -- and that’s the problem, the fact that there’s a _but_ when he ought to just be pleased with the turnout and the end of a really good year -- but he can’t stop looking at his phone to check the time, and not just to prepare for midnight. He’s five hours ahead of Harry and, worse than that, there’s an _ocean_ between them, which feels bigger than it ever has before now that Louis’ come clean with him about his relationship status and about what he really wants.

Stan slaps him on the back, yanking him free of the grip that memory has on him, the day Harry followed him inside and they stood right where he and Stan are now. “All good?” he asks Stan, grinning easily when he turns to look at him.

“A couple are fucking in the guest bedroom,” says Stan, his smile breaking into a delighted laugh. Louis snorts; he’s not necessarily peased about it, but it’ll be a good story, anyway.

“Is the door shut, at least?”

“Well,” Stan says, pausing for effect to take a drink, “It _wasn’t_.”

His eyebrows shoot up because he’s a sucker for a good story of ridiculousness, and he’s so ready to hear the rest of it, but his ass vibrates and his reaction is, frankly, a little embarrassing.

“Just one sec!” he says, holding out a hand and walking away with one ear covered, trying to find somewhere sort of quiet. It’s Harry, as he expected. He shouts “Hello?” into the speaker a few times as he opens his bedroom door and hopes no one’s fucking in there, either.

He’s in luck: it’s empty, and semi-quiet when the door closes.

“Lou?”

“Hey,” he breathes, relieved to have gotten him on. “Sorry, it’s kind of--”

“Yeah, yeah, just a second,” Harry says, his voice muffled by what Louis suspects is a hand placed over the phone’s receiver. “Louis?”

“Yes, I’m here,” Louis says, stiffening, trying hard not to say _for the second time_. “What’s going on?”

“I’m, sorry, I’m on my way to this Coldplay concert, actually,” Harry says, his deep voice just barely cutting through the noise around him and the muffled bass sounds from behind Louis’ closed bedroom door. “The party good? You having fun?”

“Um, yeah, it’s crazy, man.” Louis’ voice sounds sullen even to himself, and he clears his throat, trying to shake it off. “More people than last year.”

There’s such a long pause that Louis thinks he might have hung up, but then: “Can you--could you call me again at midnight? I can’t really hear anything you’re saying here, sorry.”

“Guess so,” Louis says, his voice sharp. “Right, bye.”

He chucks his phone onto the bed and leaves it there, too bothered by things he can’t control, and, when he leaves his bedroom, annoyed by the two people fucking in his guest room, because how dare they, honestly. The bar’s still stocked up, though, and Louis pushes past a small crowd to get to it, decides it’s close enough to midnight to get truly and properly pissed now that the party’s full-on. He pours himself a few fingers of vodka, because fuck it, and downs it all in one long shot. He ought to go get his phone, he thinks, but he leaves the cup in his wake on the table, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and lets the party take him in.

Where he winds up at midnight is actually in the photobooth after taking pictures with, probably, every single person in attendance. It’s just him and a guy he’s known since he was ten years old sitting there when the countdown starts, and they both run out with their arms thrown up, shouting along with everyone else.The confetti falls right on cue, and the DJ plays something Louis’ never heard before but it’s _perfect_ , loud and catchy and uplifting, as it ought to be.

Amidst a crowd of people kissing each other senseless, he somehow avoids toppling over as he sway-sprints toward his bedroom and dives for his phone on the bed. He rings Harry with a racing heart, but to no answer, no matter how many times he tries, and it’s only after he stares down at his phone, eyes swimming, that he realizes he’s had a missed call and a voicemail from 11:44.

It’s from Harry; he presses play and holds his opposite ear closed with his finger, afraid to miss a single word of it: “ _Hey, I tried to call you but I guess you’re probably busy with the party, and, um...I don’t think my phone will make it to midnight and it’s so loud here. Yeah. I just wanted to say, like, happy new year, and...it’s been great, this one. You’ve been great. I’m lucky to have you at all, Louis. Alright. I’ve gotta go. I’ll speak to you soon. Happy new year. I miss you.”_

The end of the message is followed immediately by the sound of fireworks from his neighbor’s garden, sounding mocking rather than celebratory in the wake of Harry’s somewhat somber voice. It’s...not a _bad_ message, but he just misses Harry like crazy, still wishes against all odds that Harry still might show up and kiss him silly once the party breaks up. Even as drunk as he is, he doesn’t expect that, or anything more out of the rest of his night besides, probably, lots of idiotic dancing and more fireworks.

Louis allows himself a moment to text Harry -- a simple _happy new year xxx_ \-- and then lumbers up from the bed, swaying once he’s got both feet on the ground. The floor tilts slowly, and the only solution that comes to him, he slurs aloud to himself in the empty room: “Think I need another drink.”

\--

The first seven days of the year all run into each other because Louis doesn’t have anything to do until the 7th and Harry’s showing up on his Twitter feed, still, pictures of him with fans somewhere warm enough for him to have his shirt off.

But it’s not a _bad_ start to the year, really, because besides his relationship with Harry, nothing could be better. The promise of a world tour is the good kind of terrifying; he gets a jolt in his stomach each time he thinks about how many shows they’re playing and what that means for his everyday life. It’s going to be hectic and overwhelming, he’s going to have so much on his shoulders between touring and promo and recording their new album, and all of that lifts Louis up rather than weighs him down. He’s so proud and lucky, he thinks, to do it at all, let alone do that alongside his best mates.

It sort of makes up for Harry spending his week off on an island with Taylor, knowing they have the rest of the year together to eat all their meals together, whether they want to or not, and to share clothes and stay up late on the tour bus and figure something out, maybe, _hopefully_.

The burn of missing him doesn’t go away entirely but it does dwindle, especially knowing their tour rehearsals start on the 7th and Harry will have to be there for those, no matter how good his holiday in the Virgin Islands is treating him. He uses the days leading up to it to relax while he can because, soon enough, sinking into his couch for six hours at a time will no longer be an available option on a Sunday.

So that’s what he does on the 6th: watches Homeland and wonders when Harry’s flight comes in, whether he’ll text him that night or if they’ll wait to see each other the next day at work. He’s full and comfy after he finishes leftover takeaway curry, and he curls up with the cartons of it still on the coffee table beside the couch and lets himself doze off there when the credits roll on another episode.

It’s dark and disorienting when he wakes up again, blinking as he sits up to the sound of his doorbell ringing for what he suspects is the third or fourth time. His phone vibrates somewhere in the couch cushion beneath him, but Louis scrambles toward the door, first, out of breath by the time he swings it open and sees Harry there, luggage in tow, sporting an orange beanie and a sunburn across his nose.

Louis’ not sure why a laugh is his first reaction, but he supposes it’s just happiness that bubbles out of him. He must look confused, because Harry laughs, too.

“Hello.” He holds up his phone, says, “I tried to ring you, like, five times to tell you I was coming.”

“I was--” Louis starts, and has to clear his sleepy-hoarse throat before he continues. “Had a kip on the sofa,” he explains, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and taking a step back. “Come in, then.”

Harry’s got a suitcase and a guitar and he lugs both in behind him, places them in the foyer like they belong there. When he turns around again, Louis gets a better look at him -- at the pimple on his nose that could also be a mosquito bite. He looks tan, cold, and a little rumpled, but mostly just tired.

“So,” Louis says, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trackies. “What’s--”

“Look,” Harry interjects, adjusting his beanie over his hair and staring hard at Louis. “This last week was kind of, like. It proved a point.”

There’s still sleep in his eyes, for fuck’s sake, and Louis can hardly process more than one word at a time much less Harry’s cryptic, roundabout sentences that only serve to frustrate rather than explain.

“A point,” he repeats, eyebrows raised. He doesn’t want to hope for anything, but his heart races when he realizes that Harry wouldn’t just drop by without good reason, no matter how long it takes him to come to the explanation. “What kind of point, then?”

In place of the hesitance that’s been present in Harry’s eyes every time they’ve had conversations like this in the past, he almost looks stricken, like he’s so anxious to say the things he wants to say that he can’t come up with the words quickly enough.

“Sometimes...just.” Harry shakes his head and pinches his lips together, thinking hard. “Some things are righter than others no matter how hard you try.”

It’s so vague and nonsensical and so _Harry_. Louis deserves medals for his patience. He needs to hear Harry actually saying the words. He feels a bit like he deserves that after all this time. “Quit talking shit, Harry.”

“I shouldn’t have left.” As he speaks, Harry starts to walk closer, reaching for Louis’ arms and unfolding them, bringing them down so that he can keep hold of him by the forearms. “I want to be with you.”

Even with the expectation of possibly hearing it, Louis chest still tightens. Without Harry’s grip hold on his arms he’s certain they would start shaking, and there’s a part of him that desperately wants to make him repeat it again. He wants to watch the pink of his lips form around _be_ and _with_ and _you_ over and over until it settles in.

He can’t joke, here, and he doesn’t want to turn it into lesser moment than what it is. It takes a second before he realizes that he needs to say something back because Harry’s watching him closely and waiting for him to react. Harry looks nervous. Louis can’t even remember the last time he’s seen him this way. Sometimes he forgets it’s even possible.

“Then stay.”

“Yeah?” Harry smiles, his entire demeanor changed.

“Of course,” says Louis. There are so many conditions he could offer, here, and he has questions, as well. He’s so tired of speaking around what he really badly wants from Harry, though. At the heart of it, Harry wanting to be with him is all that Louis wants, too.

Freeing his arms from Harry’s grip, he pushes himself closer, letting himself into a hold that Harry wraps him in without question. Maybe he never really lost him, but it feels like he has him back now. And maybe he was a bit unfair to deem what Harry said as shit because it does feel right in a way that he’s never experienced with anyone else. He tried, too, and it had taken him a long time to realize that it was all in vain because this, being with Harry, is where he finds his equilibrium.

“Just don’t change your mind, alright?” he mumbles, pressing his face into Harry’s chest and breathing him in. He smells like hotel soap and not his own and it makes Louis want to tug him into the shower or make him sweat, maybe -- anything to rid him of the traces of this past week, of someone else’s hands on him, trying to belong.

He goes with the latter, and it takes hours until he’s satisfied with his work. It ends with Harry drenched in the center of his bed, drawing lazy circles with his fingertips at the small of his back. The thought that this is _his_ now, that he’ll be able to have it every day, hits him like small shocks to his system each time the realization hits.  

When Harry finally detangles their limbs, it’s not to move away, but rather to shift Louis onto his back and move to kneel between the open space of his legs. His hands find his and he slides them together, linking their fingers loosely and holding them above Louis’ head. He’d done the same thing just minutes ago when he was inside him, but it’s sweeter now, though no less possessive.

“I love you,” he murmurs, his mouth ghosting up the side of Louis’ neck, attaching to the bit of skin where his jawline connects to his ear. It makes Louis shiver below him, goosebumps blooming up all down his skin and a dusty shade of pink transferring in blotches across his face and over his chest.

“You’re mine.” Harry can’t seem to stop kissing his each of his features,  He’s pliant and well fucked and he’s been wanting this for so long that he can’t pretend otherwise, so his urge to squirm away from the affection loses to how badly he needs it from him. He lets him touch him all over as Harry mouths against his throat, murmurs, “My baby.”

“Say that again,” Louis says, smiling, tangling both hands up in Harry’s curls and tugging until he tilts his head back enough so that he can see him properly. He still looks pale, but that flash of green is stunning and glossy when his pupil shrinks down to take Louis into focus. “You’re so lovely, babe,” Louis whispers, unable to stop himself.

Harry doesn’t so much as blink before he repeats it: “You’re mine, aren’t you?” His thumbs slide along the insides of Louis’ palms and then pulls a face at him, stupid and silly enough that Louis can’t help but huff out a laugh. “You’re stuck with me. Sorry, pal. At least I can cook.”

Louis groans, mumbles, “It’s just such a burden,” as though it’s anything other than exactly what he wants. He runs his hands down over Harry’s broad shoulders and along his arms, feeling over the ship on his left one.

“I was thinking of you,” Harry says, immediately, clenching his muscle beneath his touch.

“Yeah?”

“That night I was...just...everything was happening quite fast, you know?” He strokes a hand up the front of Louis’ body, feeling over his sternum and dipping a finger along the line of his collarbone. “I was already thinking about you. About home.”

“Well,” he starts, knitting his brows together in consideration and stalling to plant a kiss just over Harry’s dimple. He thumbs along one of Harry’s eyebrows and just looks at him, maddened by the love he feels. “You found your way back.”

Harry takes hold of his face in both hands, keeping it cradled as he kisses him, slow and building until Louis’ lips part to let him in, breathing into it.

“I love you,” Harry repeats, not centimeters from his lips -- still kissing him, really, never breaking away for too long.

“You keep _saying_ that.” Louis smiles and rolls his eyes, finally getting to Harry’s waist and gripping him tight, feeling how solid he is under his touch. Still his -- he keeps reminding himself, and he uses the pursuit of tangible evidence of that as an excuse to not let go, as if he really needs one.

“M’trying to get you to say it back.”

Harry _knows._ Louis told him he loved him ten minutes after meeting him. It was in a casual, ridiculous context that he’s embarrassed of now, but he’s never actually stopped loving him since. The feeling has just changed and grown, from _you can do this_ to _you’re the best friend I’ve ever had_ and to this.

Harry makes him indulgent, though, and Louis says it anyway. He nudges his nose up against Harry’s, so close that he can’t see much more than his pupils.

“Love you.”

Harry nods, then gives up trying to fight then grin that stretches his face wide, looking _too_ pleased. “Alright, alright,” Louis says, turning his face away into the pillow while Harry peppers his cheek with smacking kisses. “You’re like a _dog_ , stop licking me--”

And he ought to have known asking him to stop would only invite Harry to lick a stripe up his cheek that makes Louis squawk and squirm and dig his tongue into his ear, when he can, and it devolves into madness after that. They make their way from the bed to the kitchen in the middle of the night, just talking, avoiding the topics that sting and focusing on the good stuff, mutual friends and stories from Louis’ party.

Harry’s jetlagged and Louis is wired and the combination keeps them awake until the sky turns from black to grey, and even then it’s a struggle to stop making each other laugh long enough to fall asleep tangled up, Louis’ face in nuzzled close to Harry’s neck, Harry’s arms circled round Louis’ shoulders.

\--

“We’re already late.” Harry’s voice is deep and spoken right up against Louis’ ear, rumbly enough to wake him. Louis groans and checks the time with one eye still closed. Harry’s right. They were supposed to be at the studio a half hour ago.

They groan in sync and lumber out of bed, taking turns using the toilet and Louis’ toothbrush. It’s a tired morning, but Louis is happy, and Harry keeps smiling at him with his puffy eyes and kisses him twice before they walk outside to Louis’ Rover, tasting of toothpaste and smelling like him again, finally.

“Charge that?” Louis asks once they’re en route, handing Harry his phone to connect to the mobile phone charger between them. Harry goes quiet, and Louis glances over when he stops at a traffic light to see him peering down at the screen.

“Going through my private property, Harold? how dare you.”

Harry just grins without looking up. “Can I tweet something?”

“Tweet what?” Louis’ weary, looking away as he starts to drive again.

“Too late, already did it.” He places the mobile beside him and looks out of the window, pleased with himself as Louis stops to park in the garage behind the building.

“What’d you--” Louis unlocks his phone to see, and: “ _‘Hello_?’ That was your big debut tweet?”

Harry looks pleased with himself. “I thought ‘Hi’ might have been a little obvious.”

It’s no surprise that Harry tweeted something so cryptic, considering all of his own tweets are snippets of conversation or the world’s most boring observations. His attempt to remain anonymous as a guest tweeter might make it obvious, anyway, but they’ll never have to confirm or deny that. Louis feels unreasonably smug at how wrong people are about them, about how many secrets they’re able to keep despite all that works against them.

“Hey,” he says, leaning over the console to steal a kiss with his fingers twisted into Harry’s jacket collar. Harry circles his hand around the inside of Louis’ thigh and squeezes as Louis draws back. “Let’s go in, then.”

Harry nods and slumps down in his seat, looking about as exhausted as Louis feels. “Tonight, though, right?”

“Tonight what?”

Harry pinches him for playing dumb. “I’m coming home with you.”

“Mhm,” Louis nods, grinning wide at having made Harry say it out loud. He bites his shoulder and then leans back, unbuckling his seat belt. “And tomorrow night, too. Maybe. If I’m feeling generous.”

“ _Heyyy_ ,” Harry drawls, though the last of it is taken over by a yawn that sounds like the noise the T-Rex makes in Jurassic Park. Louis snorts.

“I’m actually excited for this,” Harry says, apparently more willing to sit in the car and have a chat than he is to rectify their tardiness. Louis is always late, anyway, and they got three hours of sleep, and he likes the way Harry’s fingers look wrapped around the inside of his thigh.

“For rehearsals?”

“For, like, this year and the tour and everything. I’m just so--”

“Relieved?”

Harry nods. “I just needed to sort it out with you.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, not sure why he feels this rush of gratitude for the fact that Harry did in fact manage to sort it out. “For sorting it out.”

Harry makes a quiet “mhm” sound that’s lost in the kiss he leans into. His fingers play over Louis’ t-shirt and then stop over the charm resting beneath it, making Louis smile as Harry draws back just an inch. “I do need a favor, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Come up with a really convincing lie as to why we’re so late,” he murmurs, kissing the side of Louis’ neck and biting him there before Louis can bat him away.

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” Louis says, remembering the dressing room at MSG.  “That’s gonna leave a mark, Harry, c’mon--”

“That’s the _point_ \--”

“So I’ll just point to my neck, then, when people ask me why we’re an hour late?”

Harry laughs into the kiss until they’re not actually kissing anymore, which Louis uses as his opportunity to get out of the car before Harry can look at him the right way and convince him they should just skive altogether. They don’t need an excuse, in the end, because no one is working yet or doing much other than eating the catered breakfast and catching up after their short break, undoubtedly using Harry and Louis as an excuse for their slow start to the day. Something about the atmosphere reminds Louis of how he always imagines the first day of a new year to be when people go on about new beginnings and fresh starts, and it’s the seventh of January, but it feels like that now; like every confusing night and stolen kiss and weeks spent apart were all in preparation for the simplicity of just being with Harry. And of course it won’t ever be simple, and it’s going to be one hell of a long year, but Louis is sure now that there’s nothing he’s running from.


End file.
